If Carter hadn’t been checking his phone, he might have seen his brother coming down the ski slopes in his direction. And if Carter had seen his brother in time and avoided the crash, he might not have two broken legs right now.
Oops.
Now, Carter is stuck at home for weeks, with both his legs in casts. Bored, he starts checking out the live feeds from police cams around his town. Before he knows it, he’s obsessed — watching his classmates when they don’t know he’s looking, and discovering some other very strange things going on that no one else is noticing.
But what happens when Carter is found out… and the people he’s watching know where he lives?
My first thought when I saw the front cover was, “Why is there a red panda on the front cover? How is a red panda going to play into this story?”
If I had a nickel for every book I’ve read about a kid who broke both their legs, I’d have two nickels. Which isn’t much, but it’s odd that it’s happened twice. The other broken legs story I’m talking about is Lucky Broken Girl by Ruth Behar. It’s about a girl named Ruthie who is in a horrible car accident that leaves her in a body cast from her chest down. Her story takes place in the 1960s, so unlike Carter, she had no screens. She didn’t even have a wheelchair to get around in. If you want to read my full review of Lucky Broken Girl by Ruth Behar, please click on the link below:
https://alexandra-adlawan.com/lucky-broken-girl-by-ruth-behar/
I empathize with Carter’s screen addiction. I understand the lure of social media and technology. I spend way too much time on Instagram watching funny animal reels and browsing other people’s artwork.
I can understand why Carter became obsessed with the police cams. He’s stuck alone at home, feeling disconnected from the rest of the world, and he is bored out of his mind. But it was creepy that he was snooping on his classmates, in particular, a girl he had a crush on. A girl who had no interest in him. It was borderline stalker behavior. I would have more of an issue with this if Carter had focused all his attention on the girl. But thankfully, he was snooping on other people in town as well. It was funny how invested he was in certain people’s lives. I’d give more details, but I don’t want to spoil it.
Overall, this is a quick-paced read full of Gordon Korman’s classic humor.
Final note – The number one lesson to take away from this story: don’t stand at the bottom of a ski slope while looking at your phone.