Third Wheel
By Richard R. Becker
“If the devil can’t make you bad, he’ll make you busy.”
Fourteen-year-old Brady Wilks struggles to find his place among the ever-changing social and literal landscape of 1982 Las Vegas. Between a toxically unstable home life, firsts in love, and constantly fighting for a place among his peers, it’s too easy for him to fall into a deep pit of drugs, alcohol, and murder.
What’s surprisingly easier is how he finds the help to climb back out—as well as where it comes from.
Third Wheel is a dark and gritty—yet all-to-real—examination of the dichotomy between right and wrong. Brady asks himself, and the reader, questions about growing up that almost all of us tackled at one point or another in our own adolescence.
Is a person inherently good?
Can you be “born bad”?
Or is it a dance between the two until we’re able to make our own choices without the constant influence of people pulling in either direction?
“Brett or Mick would remember because every character that was roped together almost tumbled over the edge…. Wasn’t that the same scenario we were playing now?”
While I’ve never read The Outsiders by S.E. Hinton, I had many friends in middle school and high school (and even now as I write this) singing its praises, sharing tidbits and themes, and pushing me to “just read it already”. So even without a full comparison available, I still got the vibe from Third Wheel that it fits perfectly within the fanbase of The Outsiders. When I shared this theory with a few readers who *have* read both books, they wholeheartedly agreed!
I will put a Content Warning here: there are heavy references to drug use, alcoholism, and all the problems that come with both. There’s also a scene of self-harm that doesn’t go in the direction you may be thinking, but still made me make a note to mention for those who may be sensitive to this kind of literature. Suicide is also referenced, and there are plenty of physical injury descriptions to warrant a casual mention just in case it’s not your cup of tea. None of this bothered me personally, and I did not find anything to be gratuitous or unwarranted given the overall themes and message of the book. It’s also historically accurate to the organized crime landscape of the early 1980s, so the involvement of certain substances made sense given the historical context and implications the very real-life activities had (and still have) here in the USA.
Regarding age level for reading, I’d rank this in New Adult. I’ll caution parents of teens with this: if your kid is 15+ and is prone to discuss what they read with you, this might be okay with your discretion. I just finished reading the bulk of it yesterday and can’t remember seeing any swear words/cussing/foul language, which is actually surprising given everything going on! There also is no explicit sex or sexual content—however there is enough hinting in one or two scenes to suggest sex may have occurred. The author left that up to the reader’s imagination, and honestly I feel like it could go either way (did they or didn’t they).
If you’re looking for a gripping new read that squeezes your heart and makes you gasp a few times (I definitely did!), Third Wheel is the perfect addition to your personal library.
