Book Review: The Car Thief By Theodore Weesner

I recently received an advance reviewer's copy of the reprinted book The Car Thief by Theodore Weesner to review.


Set back in 1959 in Flint, Michigan, Alex Housman is 16 and has just stolen his 14th car. Impressive numbers, for sure, and he really has no clue why he's doing it, he's just bored and wants to get caught. His single father works night shift at the local Chevy plant trying to make ends meet, while tipping the bottle at both home and in the car. Both father and son are miserable, and it seems nothing will ever make that change. Finally, Alex is caught and sent to a Juvenile Detention Center after his "girlfriend" tells her parents where her new coat came from (that just happened to be in the backseat of the stolen Buick). Will Alex go back to a life of stealing vehicles, or will he become an honest man?

Teenage angst, multiplied ten thousand times. What a sad, depressing life for both father and son. Beautifully written, I found myself wanting to thwap some sense into both main characters (and then I found myself thinking well of course it was easier to steal cars back then - easier to hotwire them, no cameras on every corner taping your every turn down the street.... c'mon. Try driving a stolen car these days for almost two weeks and see what happens, LOL) I felt that Alex was just needing someone to really show affection to him - oh, I don't know, like his mother, who is now remarried to someone else, with a new family. Come to think of it, I wanted to scream at this woman for leaving her son. Most of us tend to think of the late 1950's as perfectly rosy; this book shows the opposite side of the coin. Not everyone's life was like the perfect family sitcom on the TV from that time period.

The Car Thief by Theodore Weesneris a paperback young adult fiction book published by Astor & Blue. It is 400 pages long. The suggested cover price is $15.99. It is also available as an e-book for the Kindle and other e-readers.

I received an advance reviewer's copy of this book in order to read it and share my thoughts on it. All opinions are my own, and not that of the author(s) or publisher.