I received an ARC of this book from NetGalley in exchange for my unbiased opinion.

New teacher Molly Nicoll teaches 11th grade English at Valley High in Marin County, California. Fresh out of school, she tries to relate to her students and to get to know what is going on in their lives outside her classroom. Unbeknownst to her, several of her students were at the center of a tragedy that happened their 8th grade year, and all of her students have dark secrets they don’t show in her class.

I felt like this book tried to cover every possible scandal or problem a teenager could encounter. The story felt like a soap opera as opposed to reality. I wasn’t a huge fan of the way, after getting a long narrative about one student’s life, they would often fade into the background and remain there for the rest of the book. These narratives felt like short stories stuck into the middle of the novel. I felt like the story could have been better executed by focusing on a few of the students/storylines and going into more depth with them. The author could even have turned it into a series if she wanted to cover all the topics. It wasn’t a bad story but, in my opinion, could have been better executed.

This book kept me interested throughout. It made me really grateful that I didn't have to go through the high school experience anymore. It was a good read and I thought the writing was great.

I really enjoyed this book and have recommended it to fellow readers. Made me very glad I am no longer a teenager!

I read this book in one sitting. I couldn't put it down. It reminded me of the Netflix show, 13 Reasons Why. Sadly, everything the author writes about the teens happens in real life. However, it was kind of fun looking through the glass. It's an amazing book!

I'm a little confused who the intended audience is... if you're up for a depressing tale of modern teen life maybe this is for you.

Written from multiple perspectives, the characters come across as an indictment of Mill Valley, CA where both teens and adults all make bad decisions, or perhaps more specifically where parents surround their children with material wealth but don’t make the time or effort to truly understand what their kids need and want. Each person’s life unravels in slow motion, heading toward a seemingly inescapable wreck. It gets rather unbelievable, though if I cared more about the characters it might not matter so much.

It can often be difficult to care about characters you dislike, but Johnson keeps you invested in the lives of multiple characters you dismiss at first glance.

This is definitely a page turner and will remind you of how awful high school is. It's also a book about spoiled teenagers who have totally first world problems- Marin County and high school are by no means the most dangerous place on earth. Mary seemed ridiculously naive to me and the five teens just annoyed me. That said, Johnson has a nice writing style and the book is well paced, making it the perfect travel read. THanks to Netgalley for the ARC. I'd like to see more from Johnson.

Beautiful, heartbreaking, and very real feeling. Reminds me so much of Men, Women, and Children by Chad Kultgen.

3.5 stars
This book was given to me by NetGalley in exchange for an honest review

In the small town of Novato, California, tragedy strikes. The book opens during middle school for our group of teen characters, and after a secret note is made public the ramifications are deadly. Fast forward to high school and many of the teens are in different groups now, but all are still in the same small town. Ms. Nicoll, a new English teacher, comes in with endless enthusiasm and wishful thinking of winning over her students. What she does not know though is that the tragedy that struck years before still has lasting effects on her students.

Told from the view points of various students and teachers, this novel looks at the inner workings of teens and all the various factors that lead to the decisions they make. From partying, to cheating, to having an affair with a teacher, nothing seems to be off limits in this story. With each chapter comes a different voice, but all the stories are intertwined. I live in a small town about an hour and a half away from Novato making this novel even more real for me. There are definitely graphic and adult themes that are going on throughout, leading me to put this in the New Adult category or a recommendation for older high school teens. Not quite sure why it took me so long to finish this novel, it did not seem to have any glaring flaws, just did not keep me coming back for more.

Read the book in one sitting. At first I thought the ending was going to be disappointing, but then I realized it was true to life.

We start out in the eighth grade and then skip towards senior year, where there are many alternating POC that are struggling high school students, naive and fresh to the adult world. In my mind, our narrator is Molly, an English high school teacher who observes her students maybe too closely, Calista (Cally) is a hippie teenager who was transformed after a suicide that she and her fellow classmates were complicit in, Nick a kind of "bad boy" who is a wild-child, Emma a fabulous dancer and parties all weekend, and Dave the serious student who strives for to meet his parents expectations.

Starting out with these character types, you might be skeptical, as I have been with these stereotypes card-board cutout descriptions, but I feel like there is a deep emotional connection that can be formed with each of these characters, especially since I am in the teenage group. <b>The deep themes in this book transcends all ages, including topics such as love, heartbreak, sorrow, passion, loss, and more.</b>

Another thing is some deep character study, of flaws and powerful strengths. The author explores teenager all across the spectrum of what's expected of them and the separation or "popular' and "unpopular" and stereotypes of "goody little two shoes" and "bad boys". The author has a talent for writing this type of thing in a slow and subtle way. Don't expect some shocking plot twists or high-stakes games, it was a consistent look at the humanity and various phases that teenagers go through, and how they're trying to fit themselves in the "adult" world.

My only qualms with this is that sometimes it over-dramatizes the situations that can happen in high school. It seems that the author like to take the worst possible instances and blows them up by their characters and teachers reaction. At times, I felt like there was some unrealistic portrayal or how the daily life in high school actually is-hint: for me it was boring and quiet-. Although I know that the relatability depends on your personal high school experience, but I felt like sometimes the author overdid it, or over-reached.

I'm always excited to read books that focus on important social issues facing teenagers- especially in the school setting. I was intrigued by the synopsis and the initial chapter, focusing on cyberbullying, but then things went downhill. The alternating chapters between the teacher, and a different student was a clever idea to showcase multiple issues, but it felt like there were too many serious issues that were never fully fleshed out. The writing felt scattered, almost like there were too many conflicts that I had a hard time knowing where to focus or what to expect next.

Started out really strong, but lost me a bit after the first half. Overall, though, a super enjoyable read and I would recommend it.

Here is my full review of the book on my blog http://www.isthisreallife.co.uk/2017/03/book-round-up-3.html

Before reading this book, I'm not sure I had ever really thought of middle school and high school as a dangerous place. I mean outside of a few extreme examples, going to school is rarely life or death. In " The Most Dangerous Place on Earth" the author, Lindsey Lee Johnson, shows just how those years can be dangerous, and why...

There were many times during " The Most Dangerous Place on Earth" where the author, Lindsey lee Johnson, said something through a character that just rang very true to me about high school, bullying, and growing up. One of my favorite moments in this book, was when a character described bullying as a finger trap.

"You stuck your fingers in the ends of the tube, and the more you moved, tried to jerk free, the more tightly the tube closed around you."

I mean, wow. I don't need too many moments like that in a book to absolutely love the book, because moments like the one above are also one of the primary reasons I enjoy reading as much as I do! I can read ninety nine books and be disappointed, as long as the hundredth has a moment like that one above. Reading gives me the opportunity to imagine and voice things that feel too difficult or complex otherwise. So you finish a book, and you take that image with you, and then the next time you are experiencing something that seems impossible to communicate, you remember - you remember a line, or a scene, or a whole book even, and it helps.

I went to high school in a some what simpler time. Cellphones were just becoming popular, text messaging was popular but not widely available. The closest technological advance to Facebook that my classmates and I shared was AOL Instant Messaging. These messages could be manipulated and corrupted a thousand different ways. Entire conversations, one might've considered private could be copied, pasted, or printed for the world to see. I consider myself incredibly lucky to not have been the subject of very much bullying during high school, and I am forever thankful that Facebook and Instagram and more weren't available in the early 2000s. The type of attacks possible through these mediums, or just the constant rejection of "zero likes" is more than I can imagine coping with as an adolescent.

The parents in this book were overwhelmingly bad. As a parent myself, I feel like this book was a good reminder of the power parents have in teaching their children the impact they have on others. One moment in particular stuck out to me - one of the students commits suicide after being bullied, and Damon, one of the bullies, was "punished" by being kept home from school for a week. The character remarks, "That was how he knew. That nothing could touch him. And if nothing could touch him, then nothing he did mattered." What an important lesson to fail to communicate - what you say and do matters. And how much does that explain why Damon felt like it didn't matter what he said to another student or how he made them feel. Wow, again from this book.


Lindsey Lee Johnson is an excellent writer, so when the narrative of "The Most Dangerous Place on Earth" slipped into the voice of a seventeen year old boy or girl, perhaps a little too authentically, I really missed her voice. There were also a couple of storylines that felt a little implausible or overly simplified. In part, I think that's because there were so many different dangerous elements of high school life explored, it was difficult to explore all of them to a depth that would've felt right.

You know those books that you pick up and immediately fall in love with the characters? They're funny and wonderful and sometimes a little crazy and you just want to move to their lovely little town and become best friends with all of them. I love books like that. The Most Dangerous Place on Earth by Lindsey Lee Johnson IS NOT THAT BOOK! (Whoa! All caps and bold- can you tell I feel strongly?) I am sure that Johnson will not disagree with me that the characters in her book are flawed, except for me, they are just too flawed- they're awful.

The Most Dangerous Place on Earth refers to high school. If you survived high school, you know that it can be difficult with the social expectations and the labels that can follow students for years. Teenagers can be terrible to one another and trying to remember that high school isn't the whole world can feel impossible. Sure high school can be hard, but in Johnson's book it really is dangerous. One student is bullied, literally, to death. Another steals in order to cheat on the SAT. One student is so afraid of what people think of her that she allows a party to destroy her house. Another student is sleeping with a teacher. The reader is given brief glances into the minds of each student where we are allowed to see what motivates them. Sure, they aren't purely evil, but it isn't enough to make me sympathize with them.

My sister says that my problem is that I don't like dark books or anything that doesn't end, "...and they all lived happily ever after." I do like happy books, but I don't have to have the fairy tale ending, I just don't care for books that make me lose all hope in humanity. Seriously, if these kids are any indication of reality we truly are doomed. I have listed this as YA Fiction, but be warned that there are copious amounts of swearing, drug and alcohol use, and sexual references.
Maybe this book is for you, but is certainly was not for me.

What else could it be, of course? In small North American towns, where nothing ever really happens, high school is a universe on it’s own. Young athletes are worshiped like their world-renowned counterparts. All-American-Girls rise to their peaks. And sometimes, when reality hits a little too hard, lives are ended. Life can be cruel in a place infused with hormones and children trying to play adult. Lindsey Lee Johnson novel about high school has a very apt name: The Most Dangerous Place on Earth.

Drama, cyber bullying, drugs and alcohol, affairs between students and teachers, all of them a reality in life and in The Most Dangerous Place. It is a novel that follows a group of students and a couple of their teachers through several years of high school. They are young, most of them are rich and privileged, and they all think that death or pain could never happen. As the years move on, the kids change, as do their teachers - their stories relatable and poignant.

As a past teenager who had attended high school (hard to believe, I know!) I felt like I had fallen back in time reading this novel. Sure, I was never one of those students and my high school was almost totally different, but there were some aspects that I found so relatable. The anger, the drama, the feeling of being invincible, of wanting to do everything possible, of wanting to grow up. I was in love with my English teacher (though, of course, never acted on it), just as I was in love with literature and dead authors. My life wasn’t as privileged or – thankfully – as tragic, but I think everyone will be able to find a bit of themselves and people they know in this novel.

What I enjoyed most about Johnson’s writing and characters is how well they stand up to the real deal. The teenagers don’t sound like caricatures, too young, too old, or too stupid. They were intriguing, flawed, but not in a way that made them feel helpless. What I did not enjoy were some of the masturbatory musings over literary icons and books. That part felt too much like high school. In a sense that it sounded like reflections of person who just read and discussed The Great Gatsby, and so feels like the more learned person in the world. I feel that way because high school was (sadly) the only time I read Fitzgerald, Joyce, Hesse, Kafka, etc, and it made me feel so insightful and superior. Ugh, teenagers.

The Most Dangerous Place on Earth is well written, hard hitting, and does not shy away from the tough stuff.

The Most Dangerous Place on Earth follows several students from their 8th grade year through their senior year at school in Mill Valley, California - an upscale community where the students have everything they could ever want but are all missing the emotional guidance and support they desperately need.

Calista, Elisabeth, Dave, Nick, Abigail, Ryan, Emma and Damon are all damaged young people. In 8th grade, a bullying campaign against a classmate leads to his suicide - and while that moment marks changes in all of their lives, not all of the students are equally affected (whether they should be or not) by the role of their actions in his death. What they remember and how they remember it creates a thread that pulls each story together, as the reader takes in the self-destructive, careless, flippant, non-chalant, distancing or desperate behaviors undertaken by these young people of privilege.

Every generation of high school students has its own challenges for finding identity, breaking free of expectations (fair or unfair) and finding independence from their parents. The degree to which these teens struggle to understand their journey is disturbing. The pressures they experience with a social media life to maintain in addition to a real life is an added burden those of us over a certain age didn't experience in school - for which many of us are very grateful.

Without spoiling who thinks this and why, here's a moment of the book that illustrates the extremes these students experience:
To her it was a thrill to stare down the canyon, to know that if she were to fall into it, no one would think that she'd jumped. They'd consider it an accident, a tilting of her body into blackness. It was a joy to think of it, a relief to think of it. A relief to think it could all be over in an instant, that she might fly from her guilt and evaporate to nothing, and no one would blame her.

The characters are generally unpleasant, their decisions are frustrating, and their privilege is often nauseating, but the story is compelling and well written. (Some of the parallels to literature are not as deftly woven as they could be but readers will appreciate the attempt and will certainly recall their high school English classes.)