Wish you were dead / Todd Strasser.

Title :

Wish you were dead

Author:

Strasser, Todd.

Format:

Books

Summary:

Madison, a senior at a suburban New York high school, tries to uncover who is responsible for the disappearance of her friends, popular students mentioned in the posts of an anonymous blogger, while she, herself, is being stalked online and in-person.

Language:

English

Audience:

HL 650 Lexile.

ISBN - ISSN:

9781606840078

160684007X

9781606840498

1606840495

Physical Description:

236 pages ; 22 cm

Subject:

Missing persons -- Fiction.

Kidnapping -- Fiction.

High schools -- Fiction.

Schools -- Fiction.

Stalking -- Fiction.

Blogs -- Fiction.

Missing persons -- Juvenile fiction.

Kidnapping -- Juvenile fiction.

High schools -- Juvenile fiction.

Schools -- Juvenile fiction.

Stalking -- Juvenile fiction.

Blogs -- Juvenile fiction.

Young adult fiction.

New York (State) -- Fiction.

New York (State) -- Juvenile fiction.

Fiction.

First Title value, for Searching:

Wish you were dead / Todd Strasser.

Holds: Copies:

Available:*

Library	Audience	Home Location	Material Type	Shelf Number	Status
Searching... Central	Teen/Young Adult	Fiction	Teen Book	STRAS	Searching... Unknown
Searching... Moody	Teen/Young Adult	Fiction	Teen Book	STRAS	Searching... Unknown
Searching... Park Place	Teen/Young Adult	Fiction	Teen Book	STRAS	Searching... Unknown
Searching... Tuttle	Teen/Young Adult	Fiction	Teen Book	STRAS	Searching... Unknown
Searching... Young	Teen/Young Adult	Fiction	Teen Book	STRAS	Searching... Unknown

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Summary

I'll begin with Lucy. She is definitely first on the list. You can't believe how it feels to be in the cafeteria and turn around and there she is staring at me like I'm some disgusting bug or vermin. Does she really think I WANT to be this way? I hate you, Lucy. I really hate you. You are my #1 pick. I wish you were dead. The day after anonymous blogger Str-S-d wishes the popular girl would die, Lucy vanishes. The students of Soundview High are scared and worried. Especially frightened and wracked with guilt is Madison Archer, Lucy's friend and the last person to see her the night she disappeared. As days pass with no sign of the missing girl, even the attention of Tyler, an attractive new student, is not enough to distract Madison from her growing sense of foreboding. When two more popular students disappear after their names are mentioned on Str-S-d's blog, the residents of Soundview panic. Meanwhile, Madison receives anonymous notes warning that she could be next. Desperate to solve the mystery before anyone else disappears, Madison turns to Tyler, but can she trust him when it becomes clear that he knows more than he's sharing? The clock is ticking. Madison must uncover the truth behind the mysterious disappearances . . . before her name appears in Str-S-d's blog. In the spirit of stories like I Know What You Did Last Summer, Todd Strasser updates the teen thriller for the techno age with Wish You Were Dead.

Author Notes

Todd Strasser was born in New York City. While still a child, Strasser and his parents moved to Roslyn Heights, New York on Long Island. Strasser attended the I.U. Willets Elementary school and then the Wheatley School for junior high and high school. Strasser went to college at New York University for a few years, before dropping out. He lived on a commune, and then in Europe, where he was a street musician.

While he was in Europe, Strasser wrote songs and poems in letters to his friends. He decided to try writing. Upon his return to the United States, Strasser enrolled at Beloit College where he studied literature and writing.

After graduating, Strasser worked at the Middletown Times Herald-Record newspaper in Middletown, New York, and later at Compton Advertising in New York City. In 1978, he sold his first novel, Angel Dust Blues. Strasser used the money to start the Dr. Wing Tip Shoo fortune cookie company. For the next 12 years, Todd sold more fortune cookies than books.

n 1990, Strasser moved to Westchester County, N.Y., where during the next few years, he wrote various movie novelizations, including Home Alone, Free Willy, Ferris Bueller's Day Off and Jumanji. In 1993 he wrote Help! I'm Trapped in My Teacher's Body and since then has written 16 more Help! I'm Trapped... books, as well as several other series. All together, he has published more than 100 books. Strasser is alos a speaker at schools and conferences when he is not busy writing

Strasser has won numerous awards in the course of his career, including the 1995 New York State Library Association Award for Outstanding Children's Literature for the Help! I'm Trapped Series, several State Literature Awards, the 1996 International Reading Association Children's Choice as well as the 1996 Children's Book Council Children's Choice for Give a Boy a Gun and the 1996 American Library Association Best Book for Teens. He won the 1997 American Library Association Notable Book for Abe Lincoln for Class President, the 1988 American Bookseller Pick of the Lists, and was a 1988 Edgar Allan Poe nominee from the Mystery Writers of America.

(Bowker Author Biography)

Reviews (3)

School Library Journal Review

Gr 8-11-Madison Archer and the students of Soundview High are beginning to be afraid. She and Tyler dropped Lucy off at her front door and now she's missing. An anonymous blogger had written that Lucy and other students who think that they are better than everyone else should be punished-and now no one knows what happened to Lucy. Soon Lucy's boyfriend also goes missing, and then another student. Madison is thrown into the middle with anonymous emails hinting that that she could be next. Who can she trust? Emily Bauer narrates Todd Strasser's thriller (EgmontUSA, 2010) that blends in social-networking strategies with the perfect amount of teen anguish. The voices of the teenagers are spot-on, but the blogger's email voice and the kidnapper's taunts aren't as distinctive and strong as the text implies. The sense of madness and the build-up of fear are lacking. The adult voices are just mediocre, and it is sometimes difficult to distinguish who is speaking. However, the story setting, the rich kids, the missing students, the blogger, and the gripping mystery will captivate listeners.-Anita Lawson, Otsego High School, MI (c) Copyright 2011. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

Kirkus Review

Carefully plotted, this suspenseful novel blends the traditional with new tech details to successful end. Popular but kind Madison is the protagonist of what can be described as an almost archetypal teen thriller about a high-school clique being stalked (and, one by one, abducted) by an unknown villain. Interspersed throughout Madison's first-person narrative are blog postings by a bullied student at their school; each time she posts about a slight by one of her peers, that person mysteriously goes missing. Also peppered throughout are deliciously evil monologues from the perspective of the kidnapper that are both titillating and chilling. In keeping with the tradition of horror thrillers, readers will shake their heads at the implausibility of some of the characters' actions (for example, what mother would leave her daughter to go to an all-day meeting just after not one but three of her closest friends have been abducted?). However, realism is not the point here, and an impressive number of red herrings will keep readers guessing right up to the satisfying conclusion. (Thriller. 13 up) Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

Booklist Review

What's happening to the most popular students at the high school in nice, safe, well-to-do Soundview? First Lucy disappears; then her boyfriend, Adam, vanishes. Could our heroine, Madison, be next? After all, she has a cyberstalker and she was the last person to see both Lucy and Adam before they went missing. But wait! Who's the mysterious blogger Str-S-d? Hasn't he or she (curse the anonymity of cyberspace) expressed undying hatred for both Lucy and Adam? And what's the story with that new kid, Tyler? Yes, Madison thinks he is darkly handsome, but he does wear that black trench coat and sit by himself at lunch. Hmmm . . . The prolific and ever-popular Strasser has written a reader-friendly suspense novel that includes all the traditional tropes (a seemingly omniscient/omnipotent villain, a clutch of red herrings, etc.) while adding a few technological twists to appeal to connected contemporary teens. Well paced and plotted, this book makes for diverting but soon forgettable reading.--Cart, Michael Copyright 2009 Booklist