Paranoid Park

Blake Nelson
Viking (2006)
ISBN 0670061182
Reviewed by Debra Gaynor for Reader Views (9/06)

When the narrator, a sixteen-year-old goes to Paranoid Park to skateboard, he never expects to be responsible for someone’s death.

Paranoid Park “is an underground street park, which means there are no rules, nobody owns it, and you don’t have to pay to skate…. It’s also kind of a street-kid hangout…. It has that dangerous, sketchy vibe to it.”

On that fateful evening the narrator meets a fellow skateboarder, Scratch, and the two decide to hop a train just for the fun of it.  They didn’t plan to go far, just a quarter mile.  When a security guard spots the two, the ride no longer seemed like such a good idea.  The guard comes at them with “his black nightstick in his hands.”  The guard was vicious and brutally swung the stick at Scratch with all his might, the frightened narrator fights for his and Scratch’s life by slamming his skateboard into the back of the guard’s head, the guard stumbled and fell underneath the train.

Scratch runs and the narrator struggles with what to do.  His mind is bombarded with thoughts of fear, does he call 911, his uncle, just hope nobody connects him with the body or should he go to the police and confess.

 “I had a revelation then, lying in bed in the dark:  I was a bad person.”  “In my mind I went through every bad thing I had ever done.  I’d lied to people, I’d stolen stuff, I beat up Howie Zimmerman in fourth grade, I threw a shopping cart in the Clackamas River my freshman year.  I kicked the side mirror off a car once when I’d crashed skateboarding.  The list was endless.  It covered every stage of my life.  I had just that weekend had sex with a girl I didn’t even like.”

While the narrator is suffering guilt and fear, those around him are living life as usual. His friends seem to think his parent’s recent separation is why he’s acting weird.  No one realizes how close to suicide this young man is walking.

“Paranoid Park” is a well-written book, the story flows smoothly, and the plot could have been taken out of the headlines.  The characters come to life and seem to jump off the pages.  These are characters that you truly care about.  You want to help the narrator in some way.  You want to shout that it was self-defense.  Blake Nelson has the unique ability to reach inside the mind of a teen and understand what they are living and thinking.  This book is a dark look into the life of a teen.  I highly recommend this book to young adults 13 and over.

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