Shades of Simon Grey: Megan Williams

Shades of Simon Grey was a great read! Once you got wrapped up in the mystery, it was hard to put it down. A quick summary of the book is the main character, Simon Grey, gets into a car crash which results in him being in a coma. Most people of the town will know him as “Saint Simon” but we learn within the next few chapters that Simon along with 3 of the popular seniors (Devin, Danny and Kyle) hacked into the schools data base and got test answers and their hands on the grade book. The 3 seniors used Devin, a girl Simon was liked, to get him to use his computer skills. Before the crash, the school caught on and Simon tried to remove everything that he placed. But the coma got in the way of completing his task. So while Simon has out-of-body experiences talking to and reliving the horrible death of Jessup Wildemere (a man who was hung for the “murder” of his loves’ father), the 3 seniors are doing all they can to protect themselves. Along the way they realize some stuff about themselves that they didn’t realize before. I don’t want to ruin the end of the book but to find out if Simon lives or not and if the 3 seniors get caught… pick up Shades of Simon Grey.

I think that one of the main themes behind the book is peer pressure. We see that Simon was pressured into helping the girl he liked into doing something that he knew was wrong. I think that this will send a good message to the kids who read this book to be their own person and not crack under what people want you to do. Another theme that I see is people’s consciences. We see throughout the book how the different characters react to Simon being in a coma. They reflect on their own lives and what they might have done that they wished they hadn’t. For example, Devin applied to Cornell or Middlebury with hopes that her cheated grades and the hacked scholarship money would be enough to get her in. However, once Devin realizes what she has done she begins to wonder if she even wants or deserves it. When she gets her acceptance packets, she doesn’t feel excitement but dread. In the end (Spoiler Alert) Devin goes to the local community college and decides to earn her spot. I think that this was McDonald’s point of this character. That Devin is suppose to represent a healthy conscience. She knew what she did was wrong and given the fact that Simon sacrificed his goodness to help her out really tore her up. She decided to clean her conscience. I think that McDonald wanted the children who read this book to see the struggle that having a heavy burden on your conscience was like so they knew what is right and what is wrong.

I really enjoyed this book! I would suggest it for middle school aged children because that is the age when peer pressure and the pressures of getting good grades start to affect the kids. I would recommend that people read it!