Tag: The Dubious Salvation of Jack V

Today we're featuring a unique and beautiful debut that revolves around questions of privilege, revenge, and forgiveness: THE DUBIOUS SALVATION OF JACK V..

Eleven-year-old Jack V. is the son of an English woman and a Afrikaans man and he grows up in a quiet domestic environment during the in the upheaval of apartheid. When their maid's fifteen-year-old son Percy comes to stay, Jack's life is turned upside-down. Percy is bored, idle, and full of rage. When Percy catches Jack in an indelibly shameful moment, Jack learns that the smallest act of revenge has consequences beyond his imagining. 

"Yes, first novelist Strauss delivers a beautifully rendered coming-of-age story that simultaneously unfolds an understanding of life in apartheid South Africa, but what’s most remarkable here is the assured and fluid language. The ending is not melodrama but a quiet, brilliantly controlled bang." -Library Journal

"Teens will be caught by this story of a naive kid in South Africa whose personal experience of apartheid politics moves from oblivious to vicious." -Booklist, recommended to YA readers

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