From the book cover art for Deviant by Adrian McKinty, I thought this was a young adult fantasy or science fiction novel. Instead it’s a YA mystery/thriller. After reading the novel, the cover made much more sense to me. Deviant is a story that I think younger teen boys can relate to in many ways; however, they may not enjoy reading about animal sacrifice any more than I did.

Danny Lopez has been living in Las Vegas. He has really liked skateboarding around town and visiting his mom where she works behind the scenes at the casino. But those days are over. He’s gotten into some scrapes in school and it’s been decided that he has to go to a school with more structure.

His mom, Juanita, has gotten a huge promotion. The company that owns her casino has chosen her to manage a new tribal casino it’s building in Colorado. That she’s part Cherokee makes it a even more perfect fit in the company’s mind, and they’ve even arranged with the state prisons for his step-dad, Walt, to have a job. That’s good because in Danny’s eyes, Walt is a total screw-up. Everything seems perfect except that Danny doesn’t want to leave Vegas or, if he has to leave, he doesn’t understand why he can’t go live with his cousins in Los Angeles instead of going to some town in the middle of nowhere Colorado.

 To find out if you or your teen son should read Deviant, use this shortlink to read the rest of my review: http;//popcornreads.com/?p-1909