Boot Camp, by Todd Strasser, was a great book. It is about a boy named Garrett Durrell who gets sent to a boot camp in upstate New York called Lake Harmony. His parents are paying the camp a large sum of money to "whip" their son into shape. Recently, Garrett had been mischievous, coming home late, smoking, and dating one of his past math teachers. His parents believed that Lake Harmony would fix this. However, Garrett immediately comes to the conclusion that Lake Harmony is not fit for him. He recognizes that the boot camp is a terrible place where those in command use physical and psychological abuse on the campers. Garrett resists against the staff, which makes them much angrier towards him. At one part in the book, the protagonist decides to "play his cards right" and begins to cooperate. He makes friends with Pauly and Sarah, two campers who have spent many years at Lake Harmony, and have refused to reform. Together, they create a plan to escape.
The creativity that it took for Mr. Strasser to write his book is impressive. His ideas were well thought out. For example, the staff may only abuse the campers in a way where no marks or bruises are left behind. This was smart and made the story even more believable. What awed me most was that there actually are camps similar to Lake Harmony in the world. The unnoticed torture surprised me.
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