A Perfect Mistake by Melanie Conklin

A Perfect Mistake by Melanie Conklin is a compelling story of friendship about a kid named Max. Max’s friend, Will, has recently fallen into a deep coma after their friend, Joey convinced them to head to the roundhouse inside the reservation, or “res”, to check out the graffiti there even though they all knew it would be highly hazardous. Now Joey won’t speak to him and nobody is sure Will will survive. However, Max teams up with a classmate, Samantha Bovella, to bring what really happened to Will to light, hoping that things will return to normal and that he will be able to get his friends back.

One of the clues Max and Samantha find is by going back to the reservation to look for things that the police may have missed. There, in a dark pit of water, they find a bottle of beer that triggers Max’s memory of the time when Joey’s brother, Jared, forced Joey to drink the beer from the very bottle. Hoping this might be a clue to Will’s illness, he tells Samantha but makes her promise not to tell the police fearing Jared’s wrath.

Yet, somehow Jared finds out. Jared hurts Max himself as well as sending Joey, who is also one of Max’s best friends to do his bidding. Sadly, Jared and Joey always get away with hurting Max every time on account of Max’s height. This is because as an eleven-year-old who is over six feet tall, he is often seen as the aggressor in situations when in fact the contrary is true. However, even against Jared’s threats, Samantha and Max persevere and continue their investigation to discover that what really happened to Will is worse than they had ever imagined.

I loved this novel because of its message about friendship and how it can prevail over evil in nearly all situations. It’s beautifully heartwarming to see Max try and bring his friends back together, even after all the things Joey has done to him. Doing this shows that even if some terrible things have happened in the past, things might be fixed in the future, but if you don’t try, nothing will be as it was before.