Under This Red Rock

Gr 10 Up–Ubiquitous Pressley—with 600 credits!—opens gently, announcing end-of-the-book resources and trigger warnings about suicide and suicidal ideation. Despite 16-year-old Neely’s first-person POV, she’s not a reliable narrator—mostly because she can’t trust the voices she hears. “Don’t react to them,” her father once warned, a rare moment when he “spoke of the seed of madness from which our family tree sprouts.” He eventually left; a car accident took her mother, and her older brother died by suicide. Only her kind grandparents are left. Grandpa encourages “honest work,” so Neely gets a job at the local caverns. And then a coworker is heinously murdered, and Neely was the last to kiss Mila—and see her alive. Pressley is a wondrous cipher for voices real and not, from the thirsty little girl, bewildered Grandma, charismatic Mila, abhorrent online incels, and, of course, lost, longing, determined Neely.