Fade to Black (hate crimes, HIV)

Book Title: Fade to Black by Alex Flinn

Topic: Hate crimes, HIV

Thoughts: I picked up this book because I like Alex Flinn's other novels (Beastly, Cloaked) in which she modernizes fairy tales and have read Nothing to Lose not putting together this is the same author.  I like the fairy tales remakes better because they are lighter and have the happily ever after ending, but her other novels appeal to the realism of the world around us.

HIV-positive Alex is attacked one morning on his way to Duncan Donuts and ends up in the hospital.  He does not know who attached him, but Daria, a Down Syndrome girl who has a crush on him, witnesses the event and tells what she saw.  Clinton has tortured Alex since he moved to his school and is accused of the crime.  Flinn effectively allows these three characters to slowly tell their side of the story as they begin to feel comfortable telling the "truth" as they see it.  While the Degrees of Guilt series has each novel told from a different character's perspective, this novel includes all of them together.

I kept wondering what the secret is that Alex's parents hide about how he contracted HIV, and Flinn surprised me with the truth.  I still don't completely like Clinton by the end of the novel, but I do have a better understanding of why he is the way he is.

Flinn is not fading to black with her versatile writing, and I'm looking forward to reading another book of hers.