Caught in a Web - Book Review


GoodReads Rating:
4.29

Book Review of :  Caught in a Web



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Caught in A Web is written by Joseph Lewis and is a fictional story that illuminates the crisis teenagers face from the hardened drug dealers that prey on middle and high school students.   Lewis’s book is a gripping novel and at the same time a powerful social commentary on today’s drug epidemic that our nation faces. The book juxtaposes the everyday life we would like our teenagers to experience, against the gritty violent destructive life of teenagers engaged in the drug culture.

The book opens with a disturbing scene, to say the least, of a middle school student being forced to try a street drug. The young boy is actually being used as a guinea pig to test the strength of their new drug. The result of their test is as far from successful as you can get.  In graphic details, the scene unfolds.  Other tragic, yet eye-opening scenes are woven into the story. One that really stood out, as I read the book, was a father and a mother trying to cope with the realization that their son was a drug user who is terrified that the drug dealers in school will kill him or those around him if he divulges their names.

Lewis gives you a glimpse of the incomprehension and confusion that a parent feels when the first time they become aware their child is a drug user, is when they are informed that their child was found dead in an alley from an overdose of street drugs. It paints very disturbing yet real scenarios of teenage drug usage and addresses the overall trauma parents endure when they discover their child’s addiction. It talks about the destruction of the family that the drugs bring on. Lewis’s book is fiction, but it is written by a writer who has seen the scourge of what he writes about.  It is certainly a book that should be read by parents and teenagers.  His fictional accounts are just mirrors of the real world our children are now exposed to.

The story is about MS-13, the infamous criminal gang, originating from El Salvador who are pushing heroin and fentanyl to vulnerable teenagers who want to show their rebelliousness, to be seen as cool and be accepted by their peers. “Caught in A Web,” is about the cruelty of bullying, the unfairness of dying young, and the horror of drug addiction. This is a fictional book that focuses on inexplicable issues where there are no neat answers as to why these things happen or how to eradicate the scourge.

 Lewis revolves his story around some boys who love sports, going to movies, pizza and experiencing the awakening of their sexual urges. By happenstance, they become involved in the drug blight that’s afflicting their schools.  One boy, George Tokay, who is a major character in the story and who loves horses but is burden by the fact that he has killed others in self-defense.  Now a relative of the man he killed is trying to kill him. The book is fast moving and bodies start to pile up quickly as Detective Jamie Graff, Pat O’Connor and Paul Eiselmann struggle to find and stop the epidemic of drugs and violent gangs that have infected their schools.

The book is an epic journey through the quagmire that teenagers are subjected to in today’s schools. This accomplished novel will help parents and teenagers become more knowledgeable about current issues facing teenagers and the school environment in general. If “Caught in A Web,” gives the smallest glimmer of understanding or the tiniest comfort to those who have had firsthand experience with today’s drug epidemic then Joseph Lewis has done his job.

 


About Joseph Lewis


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Joseph Lewis has been in education for forty-one years and counting as a teacher, coach, counselor and now as an administrator. He uses his psychology and counseling background and his knowledge and fondness for kids in crafting his characters and dialogue. He has taken creative writing and screen writing courses at UCLA and USC. Lewis has published four books, all available on Amazon and each to excellent reviews: Taking Lives (August 2014) the prequel to the Lives Trilogy; Stolen Lives (November 2014) Book One of the Lives Trilogy; Shattered Lives (March 2015) Book Two of the Trilogy; and Splintered Lives (November 2015) Book Three of the Trilogy. His fifth novel, Caught in a Web drops April 2018 from Black Rose Writing. Born and raised in Wisconsin, Lewis has been happily married for twenty-five years to his wife, Kim. Together they have three wonderful children: Wil (deceased July 2014), Hannah and Emily and they now reside in Virginia.





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