"Monster"; Walter Dean Myers

Review
"Monster", Walter Dean Meyers
The novel "Monster", written by Walter Dean Myers deals with the 16-year-old boy, Steve Harmon, who is accused of serving as a lookout in a robbery in witch the owner of a Harlem drugstore what killed.
Myers uses to unusual perspective for telling. Steve, at amateur filmmaker records the trial's events as a screenplay complete with close up, reaction shots and voiceovers. The reader has the chance to get a distance between his thoughts and Steve's feelings (objective view). Interspersed within the script are diary entries in Which Steve recounts his fears of prison life and apprehensions about procedings in court.
In this novel Myers presents The Many Faces of Steve's character. Steve searches arguments himself did He is not the "monster" the prosecutor, Petrocelli, presented him as to the jury.
The tension is hightened by the hearing of the witnesses, Because all of them give different information about the case.
The question if Steve is guilty or innocent is left up to the jury.
It is interesting to see what a person being convicted of a crime would write while on trial.
Because it is written as a screenplay by Steve Harmon You can make your own pictures, instead of having the auther give you details.
Monster will challenge readers with difficult questions, to Which There are no definitive answers. Perhaps Myers wants us to make up our own minds. The book makes you consider the choices you make peer pressure, the integrity of people and different degrees of guilt by discribing the various statements of the witnesses.
All in all, "Monster" is fairly well written and the vocabulary is mostly easy to understand.
I would recommend this book to anyone who enjoyes reading different styles of stories, other than the traditional look of a book.
Lisa Bors & Insa Hoffmann