A well written novel that follows a group of privileged high school students in the moneyed town of Mill Valley, California The Most Dangerous Place on Earth spends most of its time in dark places. From cyber bullying to drug use to academic cheating scandals there isn't much illicit activity that isn't happening at this small town high school and even the teachers get involved whether they're young and trying to fit in with the kids or are seeking out inappropriate and illegal romantic relationships, it's all there.

The main problem I had with the novel was probably a personal one, simply that it's hard to identify with or develop empathy for uber privileged kids and their often self-imposed struggles. It's difficult to shake the thought that these kids have so much handed to them and still manage to have more problems collectively than any high school I've ever heard of. Add to that the fact that the novel dwells almost solely on the negative and it's hard not to feel somewhat manipulated. Another issue I had was that this novel continued a 2016 trend of featuring a sexual relationship between an underaged girl and a grown man in a position of power. Johnson's novel, through no fault of her own, was the fifth I read in 2016 with such a plot point and I have simply grown tired of it. Why am I mentioning this? Perhaps to let the reader know that it may have unfairly affected my reaction.

Johnson's debut was often compared to Ng's Everything I never Told You in the build up to its release and while the comparison is fair, I don't think it does her any favors. Ng's novel felt far more plausible while Johnson's tends more toward the dramatic, cramming ten years worth of scandals into the experience of a few classes of high schoolers. The Most Dangerous Place on Earth definitely has its moments, but overall tended toward the improbable with characters who were too often unlikeable.

The story is told through different perspectives of different people. These are people you are most likely to walk into at a school. The prom queen, the bully, the outcast, and the teacher. You walk through all the different footsteps and take a look through the different pairs of eyes but it tells one story. At first it looks as if it is just short stories taken from each character but as you continue you realise how all the different walks leads to one path.

This book starts with 8th graders bullying Tristan, a "weird" kid that needs special academic accommodations who, in an effort to connect to his peers and make friends, writes a love note to one of the popular girls at school. The girl gives it to her boyfriend and then he and his friends and classmates begin cyber bullying Tristan on Facebook. This eventually leads to Tristan jumping off the Golden Gate Bridge. The rest of the book focuses on the aftermath of Tristan's suicide on his classmates and teachers in their junior and senior years of high school. It was troubling to see how much social sites like Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter is involved in the making and breaking of people in the social hierarchy of high school. Parts of it were heartbreaking like teachers being encouraged not to care/ get emotionally invested in students, that their main focus should be to educate them. Or learning after life tragedy that popular party girl has no real friends. Obviously the most dangerous place on Earth for the young, vulnerable, and unafraid is junior high and high school according to this book and the story can make you glad you are not in high school any more.

I gave this book 4 out of 5 stars on Goodreads.

I received a free advanced copy of this book from NetGalley for review consideration.

I gave it 2 stars due to lack of depth and connection of characters. This book is separated by time and by character. The story itself was easy to follow but there was no connection to anyone. There wasn't one likable character. If there were fewer characters involved and more time dedicated to the a few it would have been an excellent book I think.

Occasionally, during my middle and high school years, adults would say, "these are the best years of your life". I'm still baffled by this. For me, and most people I know, the teenage years were extraordinarily difficult and confusing times. Why tell struggling teens that things will only get worse?!
The story follows a group of friends through middle school and high school as they face the challenges of growing up. These teens live in privileged luxury but barely recognize it, much less appreciate it. The plot revolves around a traumatic event that occurred during middle school, which affects each of them differently.
Some of the challenges portrayed would be familiar to adults of all ages, but there are new dangers out there for today's teenagers, such as cyber bullying and dubious internet alliances. The internet makes privacy nearly impossible and cruelty much easier.
Reading this increased my empathy towards today's teenagers. I recommend it to anyone who has teens in their lives, and would like to understand their daily struggles more fully.

3.75 starts rounded up to 4

This book takes you back. Back to 8th Grade in Junior High. Back to first crushes and insecurities, back to new friendships and trying to fit in. Back to a single tragic event that shapes the lives of the teenagers at TAM High in an affluent suburb in California.

The story jumps to Junior and Senior Year in High School. (Molly) Miss Nicoll is a new teacher trying to get through to her students, without knowing their past. The same teenagers are living dramatically different lives, yet somehow all connected. How did the tragedy in middle school shape who they became? Best friends in 8th Grade barely talk now. Social media makes once private experiences become public. Nothing is safe and nothing is sacred.

I felt drawn into this book about halfway through and couldn't put it down. When the students are Juniors they all attend the same party with disastrous results. I felt for each and every character in the story. They all had their hardships and struggles and were entirely relatable. I remembered what it was like back in Junior High and High School. The kids who wanted to be well liked, the kids who felt they were above everyone else, and the kids who floated amongst both groups. This story was both heartbreaking and heartwarming. There were characters who cared so deeply it almost cost them their lives, and characters who didn't care enough. I would recommend this story and thank the publisher for the advanced copy.

This book is not for me and I am not going to give it a positive review, so therefor I am not going to review it on any of my sites. Just because I do not like it, does not mean another will not like it and I do not want to prejudice anyone from reading it. I was not expecting the stories to be unconnected the way they were. I was not expecting to dislike so many of the characters, but after the first chapter/story - I had trouble enjoying the book for what it was a story.

As noted in an earlier post, it seems that the new group of YA novels are rather dark and sad. That is certainly the case with The Most Dangerous Place on Earth by Lindsey Lee Johnson. In fact, I did not think that it was an accurate portrayal of high school life, even in a privileged setting (Mill Valley, near San Francisco) which parallels New Trier. Rather, this book seemed to be an attempt to string together vignettes – suicide, alcohol and drug use, teacher/student affair, car accident involving the family BMW, cyberbullying, cheating on the SAT, a runaway acting in gay porn films - about a group of classmates who repeatedly make poor choices and rarely face consequences.

I cared about this group and felt that each student had a distinct, if caricatured, voice. Most seemed to be looking for guidance and understanding, craving a listener, but the adults – both parents and teachers – were crafted in a very negative, stereotypical way. I will not be recommending this title and am frankly puzzled at the positive reviews from Library Journal and Publishers Weekly.

Look instead for Holding up the Universe by Jennifer Niven (best-selling author of All the Bright Places). Holding up the Universe also deals with some difficult issues of identity and self-acceptance faced by high school students. Junior Libby Strout became very obese while grieving her mother’s death and has only recently lost enough weight to return to school where she is bullied by others, including senior Jack Masselin who has prosopagnosia (face blindness). They ultimately form a bond, are not afraid to ignore peer pressure and challenge authority. Aspirational and inspirational with starred reviews from School Library Journal, Publishers Weekly, and Voya.

Dark, heavy, heartbreaking. This book certainly brings up questions. Is school really the most dangerous place on earth? Could this much possibly be happening in high schools? Are these students truly examples of kids today? Are my teens feeling and seeing this? Are parents completely blind to the reality? How sad that the teacher who truly cared was told not to. I can't say I enjoyed this book, but it was thought provoking.
Advanced reader copy provided by the publishers at NetGalley for review.

Basically a book about a teacher, her students and their lives. Through in a few more creepy characters and that is what this book was about. Each student tells their story with the teacher's story interspersed. The writing was good, I thought the story was missing something. Thanks NetGalley for the opportunity to read this book in return for my honest review.

I believe The Most Dangerous Place on Earth by Lindsey Lee Johnson is suppose to be a YA story. At times I thought the story was too juvenile for this age group and at other times I thought too explicit. The Most Dangerous Place on Earth did a lot of jumping from character to character. Most of the story was quite predictable. I was given an early copy to review.

I had a hard time rating this one, trying to decide between a 3 and a 4, so I will say it's technically a 3.5. I enjoyed the gossipy aspect of the book and reading about the characters, but it all seemed out of order and a little jumbled up to me. The author did keep me in anticipation of what happened to a previous character while learning about a new one, so she did a good job of keeping me reading. I feel like adults would enjoy reading about these rich, entitled kids more than teenagers would for some reason. As a high school teacher, I could relate to some of the things with the young, first year teacher: wanting to know about her students, trying to get through to them, etc.; but, she also takes it too far, which is part of the plot. It is an interesting exploration of the student/teacher dynamic and today's teenagers in general...makes me not want to think about what they are doing outside of school time!

This book focuses on the lives of a select group of teenagers in an upper-class suburb of San Francisco as they move from middle school into high school. While it's set in beautiful California the experiences of these teens, and one of their teachers, are less than ideal as readers get glimpses into their lives and their own unique sets of problems.

The story is told using multiple POVs with each character getting their own chapter. When combined, these shorter scenes tell the bigger story of this group of teens who seem to have it all - including seemingly unlimited funds and no parental supervision.

Johnson touches on many serious issues plaguing today's teens - the influence of social media, peer pressure, bullying, the pressure to succeed, drugs/alcohol, lack of connection with parents etc. That's a lot of issues and honestly, it felt like she may have taken on too many issues for one book.

Johnson's writing is good and she pulled me into her world, but I had hoped for more complexity and depth to the story lines and characters as well as less predictable endings. Several of her characters verged on clichés (with Miss Nichols, the idealistic and naive teacher being the most frustrating). With only being given a small number of pages to tell each of their stories, unfortunately I can't say that I was invested in any of their lives.

I had a love/hate relationship with this book. While teen angst and (too?) many issues are brought to light that affect teens today, I didn't find it as powerful as I had expected and wish there was more depth to the plot and characters. I hovered between a 2.5 and a 3-star rating but opted to bump up my rating to 3 stars because Johnson was able to keep my interest.

Disclaimer: My sincere thanks to Random House Canada and NetGalley for providing me with a complimentary e-book copy of this book in exchange for my honest review.

High School and teen-agers, a place of learning, friends, fun and fear, insecurity and menace. Who are the students who enter Miss Nicoll's class as juniors? What forces drive them to behave as they do?
A darkly human psychological study of a group of classmates as they maneuver through their schools years, the teachers who work to help them succeed, and the influence of parents who care, but don't know what to do with them. they all come together in their junior year as Miss Nicoll, an idealistic teacher works hard to teach uninterested students.
Can she find what motivates them and why these well off students seem bent on self-destruction? Lindsey Lee Johnson weaves a tale of love and hope amid a storm of anger and confusion.

** spoiler alert ** I wanted to like this book more than I did. The beginning was so poignant and so wonderful and made me feel like it would be such a beautiful story - so important and so wonderful. These issues (bullying, suicide, mental health) are very prevalent today - and I'm not sure if they're more prevalent than they used to be or if they are just getting more attention than they used to get.
Either way, when they jumped to junior year, I feel like it lost some of its integrity. I missed hearing about Cally and why she had turned out to be the way she was. I didn't feel like it delved deeply enough into what it could have been.
I did love that it brought in an outsider - a teacher that I very much connected with - to retell the story, to see the kids in another light.
But, for me, it fell just a little bit short. And that makes me a little bit sad because I really wanted to love it, but I just didn't.
All that being said, I did finish it quickly as I was curious what was going to happen to these kids. I wonder if this would have been a different story told from a different perspective - a rural, middle class society unlike the affluent society it was placed in. Or if it had been told strictly from Molly Nicoll's point of view or Cally's point of view only.

There are many people who never want to return to their high school years, but Lindsey Lee Johnson provides a fascinating and disturbing fictional look at present day high school life in Mill Valley, California. Because of the ubiquity of social media and the way it is used to savage other people, these high school students resemble a pack of hyenas trying to take down the weakest in the herd. Yet for all that is out in the open, there are hidden depths and heartbreaking pain for each of the characters. The Most Dangerous Place on Earth is eye-opening fiction about the lives of teenagers today. It’s also a great read!

My review was posted on Goodreads on 1/4/17

This book started out very strong. It starts with several of the more popular students in eighth grade and their actions that contributed to the suicide of one student. This section was very gut wrenching and heartbreaking, especially because I know this stuff actually happens. Kids don't realize how their actions affect others and sometimes kids don't even mean to be so cruel. It was interesting seeing Callie's POV and how torn she was in her actions, but she also just wanted to fit in.

But after that initial section, things kind of went downhill for me. It started with the POV of Molly Nicoll. We get her perspective as she enters the teaching profession for the first time. She is young and optimistic and she cares way too much (yes, that is possible). She is teaching a lot of the kids that were involved in the incident with the student in eighth grade. It's high school now and you can tell that the students have been impacted by that. The book would tell a few chapters from the teacher's POV, but then it would go to one of the students. But it would have one section by one student and then we would never hear from that student again. And there were so many issues that were talked about, but never fully resolved, like Callie's guilt and the sexual relationship between the teacher (not Molly) and one of the students and one of the students being arrested for a DUI and one of the students feeling so much pressure that he cheats on the SAT's (the author never did reveal his score and that was irritating). There was just so much going on and none of it was resolved. Molly gets way too involved with her students and I felt like her growth as a teacher came about way too fast and was kind of unrealistic. Also, I get that a lot of Molly's actions were a bit over the line, but one of the teachers suggested their job was NOT to care, but to teach. Isn't it possible for a teacher to do both?

This was a book that was supposed to be about bullying, but it ended up having so many voices and so many issues that I didn't really feel satisfied by any of the characters or the plot.

Uh, this book. It took me back to also the most dangerous place I have ever been - my Catholic high school - where I experienced being the only Asian girl and biggest nerd in a sea of white preppy students. For of all of the cliches and repetitive dialogue, I found this book horrifying and fascinating and have come out of it feeling so strongly about three things that I can't help but give it a three-star review:

1. I never want kids.
2. If I have kids, they can't get older than 12.
3. If they get older than 12, they aren't allowed to leave the house.


But seriously, this book is terrifying and sadly accurate. I hope I never have to read it again.

Thanks to Netgalley for providing me with an advanced copy of this book.