Fool's Gold
This is a book about confronting fears and the past, and possibly the importance of friendship, but that's iffy. Jokester Rudy is worried when his friend Barney takes up with the new kid Tyler ("Styler", because he's so stylish. yeeeesh) from L.A. This Tyler has somehow gotten his hands on a map to one of the local abandoned goldmines where there's millions of dollars in gold just waiting to be picked up. Barney is psyched, but Rudy is scared and doesn't want to fess up to it, but he's running out of excuses.
I would feel bad for Rudy if he weren't completely obnoxious. He does impressions. When he introduces himself to the reader he goes on about how funny he is, how he's been funny since 1st grade when he starts this campaign of sexual harassment towards a pretty girl in class. It involves constant declarations of love and dying of heartbreak in public, writing notes, stalking, and staring. He still does it five, six years later. She doesn't think its funny, but how the teachers and her friends laugh! Later, Rudy criticizes Styler for hitting on an older, pretty neighbor girl and being a "creep" about it. No irony at all.
So, as annoying as Styler and his calling Rudy "Chickie-baby" is, I have no sympathy, even when, late in the book, it comes out about Rudy's neglectful stepfather and how his hyper littler sisters are traumatized, too.
Many of Snyder's books have a supernatural element to them. It seems like she was often unable to create a compelling character without some greater outside force to define them. This is a book that can be skipped.
