Life on Hayling Island seems isolated from the outside world for 14 year old Alix. Problems like terrorism, wars, and refugees seem worlds away. But one day at the beach, Alix and her friend find a drowning illegal immigrant who was tortured by the rebels in Iraq for helping the allied forces. Mohammed is desperate to not be deported and now his life falls in her hands. She must face this moral dilemma on her own, one mistake and they will be discovered.
In Ponyboy’s world, there are only 2 kinds of people: greasers and socs. A soc has money, power, and privilege, and can get away with practically anything. But a greaser always lives on the outside, and needs to watch his back if he doesn’t want to get beat up by a group of socs. Ponyboy is a greaser, and has always been proud of it, and fights against gangs of socs to help his fellow greasers.
Claire Goldsmith just wants a break. She has gone through struggle after struggle after struggle. So when her dad "falls over sideways" during a stroke, Claire just about loses it. Out of nowhere she is pushed down a road filled with tears, flying spaghetti and snappy brothers. Not to mention bullies and scary teachers at school. As Claire maneuvers her way down this twisted road she learns more about herself than thought possible.
Henry Page has never been in love, and he's fine with it. He's much happier focusing on college and the future, and becoming the newspaper editor at his school. When Grace Town walks into Henry Page's school one day, he practically overlooks her. Were it not for her rather oversized boy's clothes and the cane she walks with, he may have ignored her completely. But their paths cross in the form of the newspaper, and sparks fly, and Henry's about to learn for the first time just how stunning and disastrous love can be.
This consists of four stories--"quarters," Sedgwick calls them--from four different eras. Each is a compelling, haunting meditation on human nature. Each has horror undertones, confronts suffering and misery. Each is distinct in style, tone, setting, and action. Each involves philosophical musings about the meaning of spirals in the way of Jungian archetypes (universal, archaic patterns and images that derive from the collective unconscious and are the psychic counterpart of instinct; Wikipedia).
Told mostly in reverse order, But I Love Him chronicles the relationship between Anna and Connor. The reader is introduced to Anna, a high school senior, who has spent the past year focused on Connor, and has slowly given up the people and things that were important to her prior to meeting him.
Don't be fooled by the opening battle scene and continuous conflict that drives the story into thinking this is a simple action book. It's tense and fast-paced, yes, but it is also full of moral, psychological, interpersonal, and political conflict. It is a book whose external action deeply considers complicated internal issues.
