Under The Bridge by Rebecca Godfrey

From The Week of October 11, 2009

Under the Bridge is a devastating retelling of one of the most infamous murders in Canadian history. In 1997, in a small town in coastal British Columbia,
Reena Virk, a socially insecure, 14-year-old girl struggling to fit in at her high school, began a string of antagonistic exchanges with two of her fellow students, altercations which would culminate in her brutal murder some few weeks later. Though Reena Virk, in slandering a notorious female student at her school, initiated the chain of events which lead to her death, hindsight tells us that she was simply posturing for the girl's approval by mimicking her aggressive style. Rather than reacting rationally to Virk's verbal assault, the girl in question -- renamed Janice by the author -- lashed out at Virk, escalating the confrontation and sending it spinning towards its tragic culmination, Kelly Ellard, Janice's best friend, drowning Virk in the ocean on the night of November 14, 1997.


Rebecca Godfrey's efforts in Under the Bridge are a chilling reconstruction of these events, the many colorful characters who played central roles in them, and the three trials of Ellard that would attempt to find justice for Reena Virk. Can adolescents truly be this cruel when nothing more than status and pride are at stake? Or was this just the isolated act of a violent and troubled young woman who killed to feel strong, killed to feel important?

A riveting read and a must for anyone seeking to learn more about the stresses that drive young people to touch powers they do not understand. (5/5 Stars)