Meanwhile, a flashback reveals that Cat was sexually molested by Tommy three years ago, leading to an inability to continue maintaining relationships, thus naturally causing the deterioration of her friendship with Patrick. She soon learns that Jason is actually another distressed friend of Patrick, and she and Jason ultimately make up, become confidants and allies, and later even share romantic feelings. While researching at a local library, Cat is viciously insulted by Jason Connor, a passing college boy whom she inadvertently offends and who, though from a poor background, pretends to be high-class.

After a shallow talk with Bailee-Ann, Cat becomes doggedly followed by Bailee-Ann's foul-mouthed and neglected kid brother, Robert, who claims to be Beef's best friend and protégé.

Cat quickly uncovers several of the community's secrets: that Bailee-Ann, Beef's girlfriend, is cheating on him with Tommy and that Beef himself is a struggling meth addict in fact, many of Cat's peers are also revealed to be former or continuing meth addicts and/or dealers. The posse also includes Cat's detached older brother, Christian, as well as Beef Pierson: an ex-athlete, high-school dropout, and long-time sympathizer with Cat's past struggles. She starts by questioning members of her conservative Christian community, which is ravaged under the surface by a crippling culture of meth.Ĭat confronts members of what she calls the 'redneck posse', led by cocky, wealthy, homophobic Tommy Lawson. Cat's own tortured past has caused her to withdraw from the world for three years, but she begins to return by taking the criminal investigation into her own hands. Cat feels guilty for having become recently estranged from Patrick due to unrelated personal trauma, though she now vows to find his attacker, knowing the police will do little to help. In Black Creek, North Carolina, 16-year-old Cat Robinson's gay best friend, Patrick Truman, is left temporarily comatose from a brutal and discriminatory act of violence. Shine won the 2012 Amelia Elizabeth Walden Award and is on the ALA's 'YALSA Reader’s Choice' and 'Top Ten Best Fiction for Young Adults' lists for 2012. The book was published on May 1, 2011, and follows a teenage girl investigating a hate crime involving the beating and near-death of her best friend in a small, North Carolina town. Shine is a 2011 young adult mystery novel by Lauren Myracle.

Ttyl by lauren myracle