...[an] alarming, compelling and coolly funny debut ... Ms. Johnson’s characters are unpredictable, contradictory and many things at once, which make them particularly satisfying ... For its compassion, its ability to see the humanity inside even the most apparently hopeless person and the shimmering intelligence of its prose, The Most Dangerous Place on Earth reminded me a bit of Rick Moody’s great 1994 novel, The Ice Storm. You end up sympathizing with and aching for even characters who appear to be irredeemable.
Johnson, who taught writing to teenagers at what she describes as a 'private learning center,' convincingly captures the varied inner lives of these children. She describes them as alien to adults and young kids, and, at least for some of these wealthy teens, lacking ethics and morals. She also portrays with precision the cringe-worthy dance between adults and teenagers, who yearn for support from their elders while rejecting offers of help as hopelessly lame ... Johnson beautifully lays out the complex factors that lead Cally and her friends to brutally bully a fellow student. The cruel episode has a tragic momentum that is hard to read, and also hard to put down. Johnson's novel possesses a propulsive quality, an achievement in a book of, after the initial traumatic event, short character sketches. Yet it moves forward relentlessly, towing the reader with it. I read this book in one, long sitting ... Of course, 'rich kids have problems too' is not necessarily a deep insight. Johnson's fresh take is the subtle political angle she weaves throughout the novel.
...this surprisingly adult-themed novel stays rooted in reality — and hyper-reality. That's what makes it so terrifying ... In the hands of a lesser writer, these kids would read as stereotypes, but Johnson delves deep into their individual psychologies, revealing them to be as unique as fingerprints ... Molly's slow unraveling of their past makes for a fascinating, often comic, and ultimately heartbreaking read ... In its most insightful moments, The Most Dangerous Place on Earth also reminds us just how moving a teen drama can be.
...a novel that feels episodic in structure, in the manner of TV shows like Gossip Girl or The O.C., which feature privileged, discontented teenagers going through glamorous, larger-than-life problems. Like these TV shows, The Most Dangerous Place on Earth is high on melodrama and full of car accidents, drug abuse, and illicit sex ... Johnson makes a valiant effort to draw out the reader’s empathy for each of these characters...At times, though, the archetypes often feel so familiar that they fall into stereotypes ... Still, there are moments to admire in Johnson’s depictions of these students’ minds ... Because each student only gets one chapter, there’s limited room for background and buildup behind these dramatic endings ... Johnson’s novel portrays the self-involved world of teenagers very well, revealing just how buffered the wealthy are from the consequences of the mistakes they make.
Part of the pleasure of the book is in the way it’s written, told through shifting and sometimes contradictory perspectives. Johnson sprinkles in text messages, Facebook posts, revealing student essays and even part of a hilariously written and extremely telling, bad novel by Doug. Everything is split into seasons and years, and chapter headings such as 'The Lovers,' 'The Striver,' 'The Artist,' but don’t be mistaken — Johnson eschews stereotypes. Under those headings boil hidden meanings, exhuming the teenage truth about social media, sex, alcohol and drugs. Impossibly funny and achingly sad, Johnson’s novel makes you remember every humiliation you ever suffered while in school, and every terrifyingly bad decision you ever made.
The earnest, intimate immediacy of the typical YA voice is completely absent: This book might be about teenagers, but it’s written for adults. And it begins, like all great novels about adolescence do, with trauma ... Out of these overlapping character studies emerges a portrait of the class itself, this seething group of high-strung, privileged teenagers, as an organism that seems to have a mind of its own ... What’s exciting about The Most Dangerous Place on Earth is the way Johnson manages to find the individuality in each figure within this class full of traditional high school archetypes, without sacrificing the amorphous horror of the class itself. The book works as both a series of psychological portraits and as a social portrait.
