Review: Deadly Class #1

Deadly Class #1 by Rick Remender
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

It's 1987, and Marcus Lopez is a teenage orphan on the run from his past. Living on the streets after his parents die in a freak accident, he spends his time avoiding the police, trying to scrounge up enough money and food to survive, and trying to forget his past. When he's offered an opportunity to attend the incredibly exclusive Dominion High School, he has to decide whether this is a killer opportunity, or just an opportunity to be killed.

Deadly Class, by Rick Remender, is part of legacy extending, I assume, back to the almost the beginning of all high schools everywhere. It doesn't take long for anyone who ever attended a public high school (and, I assume, most private high schools) to realize that... well... high school sucks. Obviously, there are some great moments, and the amount of free time that many kids have during high school is obviously the envy of most adults working the 40 hour week, but high school is also fraught with dangers. There are bullies and cliques to worry about. There are budding, fragile relationships forming, both platonic and romantic. Friendships form and dissolve with alarming frequency. The whole thing is so incredibly intense. Add to that the chaos of puberty and out of control hormones and teens natural tendency towards risk taking, and you have a recipe for one messy, awful time of life, especially if you're just a little bit weird or different.

And while I'm sure that there are people who don't have that experience, and who view high school as the best time of their life, there's a certain segment of the population who really connect to stories like Heathers or, now, Deadly Class. Here's a book that takes all of that hostility and frustration and the politics of youth, and turns it up to 11. A high school for the deadly arts, where every clique and in-group is a different type of homicidal maniac? Interesting.

It's a bizarre take on a long-standing tradition, and it was a ton of fun to read. My only concern is how long can Remender keep the protagonists interesting *and* likable in a world where they're being trained to murder people.

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