Triple Threat: a book review

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Sue is very proud of her son for writing this YA novel. She says “I didn’t know he was a writer too!”

Jason Rash, first time author and son of my good friend Sue Rash, has achieved something many writers yearn for: a surprise ending. His novel, “Triple Threat,” written with young adults in mind, is a page turner for the rest of us too.

Chris is a lonely misfit who has endured pretty ugly stuff for a high school senior. She has been abused by an uncle, has lost both her parents, and now is facing the trauma of a new school. She lives with her aunt Kathy who is good to her and hopes her niece gets a great new start in life. But, though Chris is befriended by Alex, handsomest boy on campus, he happens to have a very snobbish and selfish girlfriend named Laura. The girlfriend and her two buddies, proud of their nickname “Triple Threat,” set out to make Chris’s high school days a nightmare.

When Chris becomes desperate in her loneliness and rejection she turns to an option way too many teens are now turning to: suicide.

When the principal reports to the student body what has happened to Chris, the Triple Threat and Alex all recognize they were responsible for the girl’s depression. Even ten years later their lives are still affected by heavy guilt, though Alex and Laura are married and, to all appearances, they are successful and happy.

The twists and turns of the story become more and more stunning until the climax leaves the reader hoping the author is writing a sequel.

The opportunity to write this book came to Jason unexpectedly, though he says he’s long wanted to write. With a background in physical education, Jason is an avid basketball and pickle ball player. Recently he has discovered he has a birth defect causing great pain in one leg. He is having prolonged surgery for receiving cartilage from a donor. His hopes of starting an athletic business have had to slide to a back burner. So there is time to write and Jason has grabbed it.

Jason lives in Birmingham with his wife, Jennifer, who is editor of The Alabama Baptist.

Triple Threat is available on Amazon as well as at the publisher, Suncoast Publishing, http://www.soncoastpublishing.com