Set in Spokane, WA, Skate follows a life about the Mc Dermont family, when Ian Mc Dermont is begin humiliated and harassed by teacher Coach Florence, Ian begins gets angry with the him and punches his mouth breaking the his jaw in the process. Now Ian and his younger brother Samuel Mc Dermont have to runaway from cops, CPS, and school, when the boys mother is no where to be found. Where do they go? The boys are going to Walla Walla in search of their father Samuel Mc Dermont who ran out on them when they were younger.


The way this book is written, Ian and Sammy (a nickname Ian calls his little brother) have to make many choices. The choices that where made were difficult they had to only eat small amounts of food, water, and sleep, they had to decide to run or walk at times, where to hide at one part or to steal a truck or not, but are they making the right choices? “I’d screwed up, coach Florence deserved to be punch but I shouldn’t have been the one who did it if I’d sucked up my pride and picked up the keys the we wouldn’t be here freezing our butts off like homeless people and running from the cops, and cps but he deserved it… but Sam didn’t deserve any of this, and I wondered if I was making the right descion running away says Ian Mc Dermont” (88), wondering why he did what he did before he fell asleep that night. The author uses great emotion in the book like when Ian got mad and hit the teacher, or when Sammy gets upset he cries.


Skate would fit an audience that likes mystery and tragedy in a book. This novel compares to Charlie Bone as in tragedy and mystery wise. Skate is also similar to Artemis Fowl because the teenagers are both smart but they all have idiotic ideas. Skate is a good mix of genres and emotion that mash together to make an excellent novel.