Summer Reading
Half a Life by Darin Strauss
Smore by Jack Kresek
Summary
Darin Strauss was a 18 year old boy who was driving his dads car with some friends about one month before his high school graduation, when a female classmate named Celine Zilke on a bike swerved in front of his car causing him to strike and kill her which led to her death. It was determined by the police that Strauss was not a fault for the incident but the guilt ate at him for the rest of his life. When he went to Celine's funeral he confronted her parents who repeatedly told him it wasn't his fault. Her parents then told Darin that he was now living for two people and that he must do anything he does in his life twice as good as he would have done it originally. Months went by and Darin discovered million dollar lawsuit was being filed against him by the Zilkes. The lawsuit was eventually dropped due to the lack of evidence but Darin was emotionally destroyed and found it hard to cope. He explains how 10 years later on the day of his wedding he thought about Celine and how he could do very little things in life without thinking of Celine. Strauss explains in the novel how he would attempt to keep in touch with Celine's family but over time decided not to anymore because he dint want to cause the family anymore pain then he already had.