A review by lucyrutherford
How to Steal a Car by Pete Hautman

3.0

Occasionally I like to browse the Young Adult section in the library and pick books that look interesting. This is the first in 4 books from my latest browse. The way I pick the books is if the cover and title look interesting (yes I do judge books by their cover, but I find with young adult books it's a very good way of working out what type of novel it is) and then I read the blurb and if that piques my interest, I read the first page. Generally if I like the narrative voice I'll keep reading, and it was that that made this book enjoyable. The first person narrative of the protagonist Kelleigh is amusing, descriptive and succinct. The novel has a fairly nice structure around the idea of stealing cars, an odd premise but in the context seemed to work. It also works as an ongoing metaphor for the period of life Kelleigh is going through as a 15 turning 16 year old, the beginning of becoming independent from her parents both physically with being able to drive and emotionally. The other characters are also quite individual and felt real enough. It's a short enjoyable read, the only real problem I had was with the ending, it was very abrupt and having become relatively attached to Kelleigh I wanted to be sure that everything would turn out well for her.