Shift

Jennifer Bradbury

Jul 2010 · Sold by Simon and Schuster

About this ebook

Some friends fade away….Others disappear. Now in paperback, a riveting mystery that will “keep the pages turning” (Chris Crutcher, author of Staying Fat for Sarah Byrnes).

Imagine you and your best friend head out West on a cross-country bike trek. Imagine that you get into a fight—the cheap SOB won’t kick in any cash—and you stop riding together. Imagine you reach Seattle, go home alone, and start college. Imagine you think your former best friend does too. Imagine he didn’t, that he was carrying more than $20,000 in cash the whole trip, and that now the FBI is looking for him. Imagine your world shifting....

Shift is a breathtaking tour-de-force that explores the depths of loyalty and friendship—and the unknowable depths of another person.

Ratings and reviews

Chris and his friend, Win(ston), decide to embark on a cross country bike trip after they graduate high school. Their plan is to ride from their home in West Virginia to Seattle, Washington, where Win has an uncle. But in the end, only Chris returns to West Virginia a few weeks before he is to start at Georgia Tech. Chris and Win have known each other since third grade and have been best friends since sixth grade. With the last names of Collins and Coggans, they were destined to know each other. But the bike trip might have been too much for the friendship to bear. Winston comes from a wealthy family where his father either ignores him or degrades him, and his mother is always off on some vacation or other. Win's father has pulled strings to ensure that Win has gained admittance to Dartmouth, the Alma Mater of generations of Coggans. Chris comes from a loving home where his father tells him to set a date to start the bike trip or he will forever regret not having done it. During the trip, Chris notices aspects of Win that he never saw before. Most surprising is the almost twenty-thousand dollars that Win has buried inside his bike panniers. Win never tells Chris about the money, and so, respecting Win's privacy, Chris never asks. But this is only one of many instances on the journey that Chris realizes Win is hiding more than he lets on. Upon return to normal life, Chris is visited by an FBI agent employed by Win's father. Threats are made by Mr. Coggans to find out where his son has gone. Everyone believes that Chris holds the answer to locating Win. But Chris is torn between what is expected of him and what he knows to be the right thing to do. Ms. Bradbury is one of the bright new authors in the Class of 2008. Her story is fresh and keeps the reader curious until the end. The story is told in alternating chapters: one in the present and one during the bike journey. The alternating chapters keep the story flowing and the tension building until the revelation of what Chris finds out about Win.

I really did like this book. I had to read it for a summer reading project for my school, and i really enjoyed the context of it.

Perfect

About the author

Jennifer Bradbury is the author of the middle grade novel River Runs Deep and of several critically acclaimed young adult novels, including A Moment Comes, Wrapped, and her debut, Shift—which Kirkus Reviews called “fresh, absorbing, compelling” in a starred review. Shift was picked as an ALA and a School Library Journal Best Book for Young Adults and is also on numerous state reading lists. A rock climber herself, she is also a teacher in Burlington, Washington, where she lives with her family.