dairyqueen84 's review for:

How to Steal a Car by Pete Hautman

3.0

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Kelleigh Monahan is bored; bored with her suburban Minneapolis life of strip malls, country club swimming pools, and her parents’ deteriorating marriage. While hanging out at the mall with her best friend, Jen, a guy drops his keys and Kelleigh picks them up. She and Jen go for a joy ride and she gets an adrenaline rush from the thrill of stealing a car, but not really stealing it. She doesn’t set out to be a car thief; it just kind of unfolds with different reasons for each time she drives someone’s car without their knowledge until she is deeply involved with stealing cars for Deke, a former car thief himself who is on probation. Her second theft was to help Will, the boyfriend that she and Jen share (but not really), get back at the class jerk, who spreads the rumor that Will is gay. Kelleigh has two summer assignments: to read a book and then post a review and writing a how-to essay. She chooses Moby Dick and begins writing about “How to Steal a Car.” As the summer progresses she also comes to realizations about her father’s morally ambiguous job as a defense attorney who is currently working to keep a serial rapist out of jail on a technicality. With sardonic, subversive humor, this is vintage Hautman sure to appeal to males as well as females.