The Goats

by Brock Cole

I found this book for a quarter at a garage sale once. I'd never heard of it before, but the premise sounded interesting: two social outcasts at a summer camp (boy and girl) get stripped of their clothes and stranded on an island for a prank. When the other kids sneak back to spy on, humiliate and finally rescue them, they find that "the goats" have inexplicably disappeared from the island. They've gone on the run until the weekend when the girl's mother comes to collect her from camp. I got halfway through this book before realizing I didn't really care about the characters and there was nothing else to interest me. The prose felt stiff, the dialog awkward and unrealistic, and there's a few holes in the story. Apparently The Goats has been on some banned lists because of some nudity and discussions of puberty (there's no s-x). But it's so poorly written I don't even think it deserves that attention.

Abandoned                    184 pages, 1987

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