All the Bad Things

Robbie Toe never touched Missy inappropriately, never raped Blue Jean by the fire, never did anything to the other five girls who accused him of sexual abuse. But no one cared to hear his side of the story. He was a "molester" from the beginning, a "pervert," a "predator." On the day he climbed into an abandoned treehouse to rescue The Priest, an all-black kitten with a white tuft on his neck, Robbie was whisked off to jail to the great satisfaction of the bullies who hated him for no other reason than that he had a curious penchant for cats and was an easy target.All the Bad Things tells the story in four distinct voices of a social outcast who falls prey to the relentless scorn of a small Pennsylvania town and the cruel lies of its teenage girls. How is a 14-year-old girl inspired to use sex as an instrument of torment? Has our collective conscience weakened to the point that bullying another becomes a source of amusement? Twenty-nine-year-old Robbie Toe stands to be forever changed by these attacks. The charged conclusion of the story, however, will leave the reader wondering: was the change for good or bad?