You seem to be able to nail the contemporary teen male mindset and voice. Running On Empty ’s main character, Ethan, is anything but saintly, and this is not unusual for your young adult fiction. Every time I thought I’d pegged someone, I was wrong.ĭon kindly agreed to answer some questions about the writing of Running On Empty: Each of Aker’s characters are so well thought out that they could sustain a novel of their own. As each chapter unfolds, Ethan sinks deeper, and all around him, the people who love him are having their own problems but he can’t see that. Ethan had been saving to buy a special car of his own, but when all of his money is used up on the repairs, this sets him on a desperate spiral downward into the world of online gambling, and stealing from friends and family to pay for gambling debts. Instead of paying for the damage through insurance, he makes Ethan pay. When he damages the family car by bashing it into the garage, his father decides to give him a life lesson. It’s about Ethan Palmer, the son of a wealthy lawyer, who doesn’t know how good he’s got it. But because they’re like your own kids (or you) it’s easy to step into their shoes and be transported.ĭon Aker’s newest, Running on Empty, does not disappoint. Like your own kids (or maybe like you) they do stupid things and are then shocked at the outcome of their actions. Here is my interview, originally published in The Winnipeg Review:ĭon Aker is one of those authors who has a gift for creating spot-on unlikeable male teen characters.
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