Flash Burnout by L.K. Madigan

Blake likes the way things look through the lens of his camera. He's known in class for taking pictures that are gritty. His friend Marissa, on the other hand, likes to take pictures of things that are pretty. Speaking of pretty, Shannon, Blake's girlfriend, seems ready to keep things progressing with Blake. But when Blake takes a picture of Marissa's mom - now a meth addict who lives on the street - he finds himself caught up in something that he's not really sure how to explain. Blake's always heard that actions have consequences, but he's about to find out exactly what that means.

I was afraid that Blake's voice (he's the narrator of the story) was going to wear on me; it took me awhile to get used to his Juno-minus-topical-references-plus-lots-of-puns way of talking. Shannon was a lot more like-able than I thought she would be, which was a pleasant surprise. I really liked Blake's relationship with his older brother, too; it reminded me of a brother-brother version of the brother-sister relationship in Into the Wild Nerd Yonder.

Flash Burnout was the winner of the 2010 William C. Morris Award.

Find it at IndieBound.

Read it with:
Feed by M.T. Anderson
Dracula by Bram Stoker
Doctor Who: The Visual Dictionary by Jacqueline Rayner
The Morgue and Me by John C. Ford
Into the Wild Nerd Yonder by Julie Halpern