Violence 101

Book excerpt: Fourteen year-old Hamish doesn't simply do terrible things, he is committed to the belief that violence is the solution to the obstacles in life. But Hamish is also extremely smart, and extremely self-aware. And he considers everyone around him-the other institutionalized boys, his teachers and wardens, the whole world-as sheep, blindly following society's rules, unaware of what really dictates our existence. Hamish's heroes, like Alexander the Great, understood that violence drives us all. Through mesmerizing journal entries, Violence 101 paints a disturbing yet utterly compelling picture of an extremely bright, extremely misguided adolescent who must navigate a world that encourages aggressive behavior at every turn, but then struggles to help a young man who doesn't know where to draw the line between appropriate and inappropriate behavior.