Anguish and fear cry out in [Tuned Out, a] rare, moving novel about two brothers sucked into deepest despondency by the world of drugs. So intense is the conflict, so satanic the power of "grass" and "acid," that the drama seems to proceed on two levels: the desperate struggle of Jim to save Kevin's soul and sanity, and the universal war between good and evil…. [When] Kevin takes his trip with LSD, Jim stays behind as a terrified onlooker, battling against Kevin's nightmare visions and the strangling circles which reduce the boy to a quaking, terrified animal. No recent novel or factual treatment succeeds as well in showing the self-deception, the sense of alienation, the bitterness against the established order of today, which drives the Kevins toward the touted pleasures and release of drugs. (pp. 714-15)

Download Maia (Teresa) Wojciechowska Study Guide

Subscribe Now

Jane Manthorne, in her review of "Tuned Out," in The Horn Book Magazine (copyright © 1968 by The Horn Book, Inc., Boston), Vol. XLIV, No. 6. December, 1968, pp. 714-15.