Mouth Shut, Head Down: a Novel About Coercive Control in Trafficking, by Geraldine Donaher
by Robert 8/2026
Today’s journalists don’t bother documenting the destruction of teens by those looking for financial gain or a power high. Our press believes we care only about the rich and famous. But author Geraldine Donaher doesn’t look away. She chronicles the sick process by which innocent, average high-school-aged students are used and then discarded.
Narrator Allee, pronounced “Al-lay,” but smacking of “alley,” takes us on a tour of her life as a high school senior. It’s not pretty. Mom’s dead. Dad killed her. Dad abused Allee and her mother. He’s in jail now. That’s how life goes for some people. Allee’s ticket out of her miserable existence is a knife blade penetrating the skin of her arm. Temporary but effective. Allee has a best friend, Tanaya, who finds a different ticket out of life. Its name is excess. More money than she’s ever seen. Clothes. Jewelry. And drugs, the kind that make everything you’re doing alright. And love. She’s in love with Stretch, a man ten years older than her who tells her she’s the one. Although he says otherwise, his love is conditional. There’s certain things he tells her she needs to do. Tanaya does not realize that Stretch is not her lover. He is, in reality, her employer.
Imitating life, Donaher gives Allee few good breaks. This is not a Cinderella story. This is a survivor story. The author assures us that, for every abusive person one meets, there are those who will help the tempest-tossed navigate life’s cruel seas. And that, if we’re careful and view things realistically, we’ll get through.
Six years went into the research for this book. As did Donaher’s experiences from teaching. Readers will reap the benefits from the author’s work as we witness Mouth Shut, Head Down’s poignant life lessons.
Get the book at www.geraldinedonaher.com
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By Robert / November 2, 2025
I really liked this heist book. Most of the YA novels I read I don’t like or I feel meh about. This book had me trying to contact the author and wanting to know what else she’s written. It’s not a surprise that Netflix made a movie of it (I have not seen the movie and don’t intend to. Books are always better).
I enjoyed the careful characterization throughout, but two characters made me think and feel. Dakota is everything to everybody and does everything, but she realizes that she’s wearing a variety of masks. Maybe hiding behind them. How true that is of every high school student! Who is Dakota? Is she the sum of what her parents want her to be? Is she a schedule that imprisons her? I felt for her.
Benny’s type of character I’d seen before in YA novels: the token Black kid in a sea of white faces. But I used to live in Philly, and Benny seemed like a kid from the neighborhood. He asks his uncle to help him get a car for the heist. That uncle and garage seemed realistic to me. As did Benny’s frustration at being the poor kid, the kid having to keep up appearances, the walking-the-social-tightrope kid.
The setting of the heist felt clever to me and Ludwig freshened up the tried-and-true plot with fun variations. How do you get a United State Mint operation to produce a “mistake” coin—then get it to stop producing coins once the computer goes into a loop? Ludwig knows her Philadelphia, and for those of us no longer living in Center City, Northeast Philadelphia, or North Philadelphia, the book is literally a ride down Memory Lane.
The novel is not perfect. That ending! That’s a lot of welding or solder, whatever they were doing. And the ending felt like it would never end. The book is very talky. I didn’t always sympathize with the rich kids and their problems (which made me look forward to the next Benny-narrated portion).
Bottom Line: Coin Heist 3.5/4 stars
But, overall, I thought this was a successful heist story and a quality Young Adult novel, a rare coin in the YA Thriller piggy bank that’s stuffed with counterfeits. If you’re interested in the genre either because you love heists and/or, like me, you want to write one, you need to read this book.
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By Robert / October 13, 2025
This book has everything every other Young Adult Thriller has in it. And that’s its problem.
Rich kids. Goody-girls. A strange girl. A hot guy who’s normal. A hot guy who is on the fringe. California. Cardboard parents and teachers.
So Thrashers reads like so many YA books out there. Senor Emily Mills has committed suicide. She wanted to be part of the in-crowd, a Thrasher. Who’s responsible for her death? Some characters are hiding a little; some, a lot.
Julian Hollister, however, kept my interest. I could never tell if he was good or evil. In that respect, he was like a real person. He did plenty that was nasty and plenty that was nice. He was a fully developed character and caught my eye, Jodi Dillion, the protag, didn’t.
Had I know this mystery/thriller would delve into the paranormal, I wouldn’t have bothered reading it. I like a good story about teens who can be frightening, unexplainable, and capable of terrible deeds all by themselves. The silly things Emily’s ghost did, like when she fiddled with the mortal’s electricity made me cringe. So, what’s Julie Soto’s stance on the afterlife? Were certain feats done by Californian eighteen-year-olds? Or by those from the beyond? Despite the ending, Julie Soto doesn’t really say, in an effort to alienate no readers. I guess the paranormal was just a device.
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Bottom Line: The Thrashers 3/4 stars
This book creates suspense, more so in the second half than in the first. I enjoyed some of the scenes, usually due to Julian’s antics. But I saw no statement made. It’s got the typical girls, the goofs, and a ghost. What else does YA need these days?