Rapids

I can't remember the title or the author of this one book?

and it's a shame because it is one of the books that have had the most impact on me. It took place in Michigan I think and it was about a guy who had a life that was going for him, his dad, who's an architect, gave him a Camaro but then one day this girl comes up to him and tells him to tell his dad to stop cheating. She contacts him again but this time with an email containing an explicit photo proving it. He finds out that she's the daughter of the woman his dad is cheating on her with who is also cheating on her husband. She's a kayaker, does Junior Olympics, is blond, and has a sister named Jenny who's on a rebellious spree. They both decide to tell their parents that they know. When the guy, Jed i think is his name, tells his dad, his dad tells the mom who ends up kicking him out and has a crazy vacuuming tendency. When the girl tells her mom, she tells her dad and they break a bunch of stuff in the house. The girl and the guy keep contact and help each other through this weird time. In the end, the daughter and the guy end up falling for each other but then a storm breaks out while they're out and a tree ends up crushing her body. A helicopter gets there but because of the weather conditions it ends up crashing with her body in it. Later, it shows the main character who's the guy, pretty much wasting his life away, playing a computer game that's similar to the Sims and gets visited by Jenny. Afterwards, the book ends with him visiting his dad who is now living in a different apartment and him getting a little bit of closure. There was also a picture of a kayak or a canoe on the front cover. This was a really nice book even though it wasn't too famous. I would just really appreciate it if anyone out there could recognize the storyline and give me the name of the title. Thanks!

Public Comments

1. Claws by Will Weaver A Minnesota teen who thinks he leads the perfect life finds out that he doesn't. All is golden for Jed: he's number one on the tennis team; his father lets him drive his muscle Camaro; he's got the prettiest girl in school adorning the passenger seat; his parents are rich, beautiful, and successful. All is golden, that is, until a mysterious girl demands a meeting one day to tell him that his father is having an affair with her mother—and suddenly all of Jed's assumptions fly out the window. As he pursues the truth of the matter, his life begins to unravel, and he learns that he is just as subject to human misery as anyone else. Weaver (Memory Boy, 2001, etc.) succeeds beautifully in limning the raw emotions of a family under stress and in creating a brutally honest voice for his protagonist. When Jed comes home from school the day after his father moves out, his mother "suddenly began to weep. I crossed the foyer and held her. It was the least I could do. But it pissed me off, and she felt frail and sharp boned and lost, and something in my heart turned cold." Weaver is less successful at developing the relationship between Jed and Laura, the girl who tells him of the affair. Their e-relationship is convincing, as is their growing attachment to each other, but the focus on emotion is wrenched off-course when Laura's troubled little sister tries to paddle away to Canada and she and Jed pursue her through the Boundary Waters in a canoe. This diversion into outdoor adventure does another U-turn when their rescue ends in tragedy, and Jed ends up living in his bedroom, obsessed with a computer game in which he designs a family of total losers.