A Crooked Mark by Linda Kao

Abstract

Reviewed by: A Crooked Mark by Linda Kao Kate Quealy-Gainer Kao, Linda A Crooked Mark. Razorbill, 2023 [368p] Trade ed. ISBN 9780593527573 $19.99 E-book ed. ISBN 9780593527580 $10.99 Reviewed from digital galleys R Gr. 7-10 Matt's seventeenth birthday present from his father might seem like an odd one, but it's something Matt's been working toward (if reluctantly) for years: the opportunity to do a solo mission for the Second Sweep, an organization that hunts down people who have survived fatal accidents by what may seem to be random luck but is really the help of Lucifer. The Marked are unaware of the Devil's assistance but are soon overcome by evil, hurting and killing people in their lives, unless the Sweep steps in first to dispatch them. The Sweep's latest target is sixteen-year-old Rachel Winter, who walked away with no more than a scratch from the car accident that killed her father. Matt is tasked with infiltrating her high school and befriending her to see how powerful the Mark has gotten; what he finds instead is a grieving girl and a family nearly destroyed by the death of her father. Still, strange things begin to befall people Rachel doesn't like—her track rival hurts her ankle, for example—and Matt needs to come to terms with potentially eliminating Rachel and the danger she poses. Matt's voice is raw and chaotic, revealing his self-doubt, frustration, wide-eyed innocence (he's never been in school before much less had friends), [End Page 292] and confusion with an authentic messiness. Matt only really knows of the Sweep through his father, so as he begins to question the existence of the organization at all, his perception of events becomes increasingly blurry, and readers too begin to wonder not only about Matt's reliability as a narrator but the reliability of anyone around him. The conclusion doesn't offer any complete answers, only a reminder that justice to some looks an awful lot like vengeance, and that people are rarely made up of just a singular moment of their lives but rather a mess of good and bad choices. Copyright © 2023 The Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois