No one would wish for the life that Kidd Ellison has grown up with. His father was abusive, and his mother could not seem to find away to keep him safe. This ultimately led to him being in a group home called Horizons. It is there that he met Red, a former surfing star who would come to Horizons to help out a bit.

After some time, Red reaches a point where he wanted to offer to have Kidd come and join him in Cardiff, where he works as a campground maintenance man. The managers of Horizons did not think that Kidd was ready to leave the facility. Some of that has to do with the company he keeps. His best friend Devon tends to get in a lot of trouble. This includes a number of suicide attempts.

Kidd finally reaches the point where he feels that he needs to runaway. He finds himself in Cardiff and starts to settle into a happy medium with work and friendship with Red. He also meets a girl named Olivia, and the two start to form a friendship that quickly develops into something more. She has her own secrets, which she hides under a ski cap.

All seems to be going well until Devon pops back into Kidd's life. Old problems, such as shoplifting and getting into fights, start happening once again. Kidd is not sure that he wants to return back to those old ways, though, because he has finally found happiness. Their friendship becomes even more of a problem when Devon starts threatening Olivia. What is Kidd going to have to do to get Devon out of his life so he can live up to the new dreams. He is coming right up to a precipice, and someone is going to have to go over.

I have quickly grown to like de la Pena and his books, which often do a wonderful job of exploring the dark underworld in which some teens find themselves. Right and wrong are not always clear, but getting a better understanding of the individual can help. From the beginning of the book, where we find Kidd stuck in solitary confinement after he has pushed Devon off a cliff, the reader is very much confused. That turns out to be most appropriate, as Kidd brings the reader through the events that led up to his current situation.

Kidd is a very sympathetic character. The reader truly wants to see him overcome his troubled life, which is fully explored and explained as he tells the tale. This is accomplished through simple narration that is periodically interrupted with entries from a journal he has kept to explain to himself the important things about his life. The story slowly builds and culminates in a big climax and an ending with a twist that is really a breakthrough for Kidd, though I am not sure that most readers will be surprised.

The title takes on complex multiple meanings when considering who the You and the I are as well as what it means to be truly saved. This would make a for a great discussion title, and it is also a great examination of mental illness and the effects of abuse in the home.