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    Nickel Plated
    Nickel Plated
    Nickel Plated
    Audiobook5 hours

    Nickel Plated

    Written by Aric Davis

    Narrated by Nick Podehl

    4/5

    ()

    About this audiobook

    Nickel is a survivor. He has to be. For as long as he can remember, his life has hinged on the flip of a coin. Or, rather, the scribble of a social worker’s pen. He’s been through the system, even had a good dad for a few years, until he was gone, too. But Nickel remembers everything he taught him, and since the day he escaped from foster-care hell, he’s put that knowledge to good use. Just twelve years old, he makes a steady living by selling marijuana to high schoolers, blackmailing pedophiles he ferrets out online, and working as a private investigator. When a beautiful girl named Arrow hires him to find her little sister Shelby, Nickel figures at best the kid’s a runaway; at worst, some perv’s gotten a hold of her. He scours the internet and the streets of Arrow’s suburban neighborhood, and what he finds there is as ugly a truth as he’s ever seen. For beyond the manicured lawns, Nickel discovers children for sale, and adults with souls black as the devil. And people like that aren’t about to let some kid ruin their game. This edgy thriller introduces a canny, precocious antihero, the likes of which young-adult readers have never seen.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherBrilliance Audio
    Release dateNov 27, 2012
    ISBN9781469200781
    Nickel Plated
    Author

    Aric Davis

    Aric Davis is married with one daughter and lives in Grand Rapids, Michigan, where he worked for sixteen years as a body piercer. He now writes full time. He likes weather cold enough to need a sweatshirt but not a coat and friends who wear their hearts on their sleeves. In addition to reading and writing, he also enjoys roller coasters, hockey, punk rock, and a good cigar. Davis is the author of eight previous books: From Ashes Rise: A Novel of Michigan, Nickel Plated, A Good and Useful Hurt, The Black Death: A Dead Man Novella, Rough Men, Breaking Point, The Fort, and Tunnel Vision.

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    Reviews for Nickel Plated

    4/5

    44 ratings9 reviews

    What did you think?

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    • 3/5
      I feel pretty conflicted about this book. On the one hand, I appreciated its gritty noir feel, and it moved at a slowly escalating pace that made for a great overall tone and feel. Nickel is an interesting, confusing character -- mostly in a good way. The story itself is satisfying (though mostly because of the way things work out in the end) though terrifying and disturbing in a good ratio. Nickel is a 12 year old boy that, after escaping abuse in the foster system, has kind of taken the law into his own hands. He's no angel, but you can kind of forgive him. He makes his money by selling pot, counterfeit money, and scamming pedophiles online into sending him money to avoid having Nickel broadcast their secrets. He does really well for himself, but he's still a 12 year old kid. If anything, he does far too well, and that was the biggest issue I had with the story. It's written from his perspective and as wordly and jaded as Nickel is, I just couldn't suspend disbelief for even a moment into thinking any of it was anything a 12 year old would actually say. Nickel also spends his time tracking down perverts and bringing them to justice in his own way, which is the bulk of the action in this story, as he takes a disturbing case of child abduction on after being contacted for help by a young girl. The relationship that blooms between them is heart breakingly sweet, and you really just wish you could give them all a hug. I liked the main characters and the ending scenes are very stressful, though the beginning and middle dragged on a bit -- they did contain a lot of really interesting tidbits of knowledge and I very much appreciate the slow build up of Nickel's character, especially the instances in which aspects of his young age seep into the carefully built mature persona he has attempted to construct. It's a well written novel, the pacing is great, the atmosphere is wonderful, but very, VERY hard to believe. I don't require that my novels are very realistic -- I am mostly a fantasy reader actually -- but for this story to take place in such a realistic world with a 12 year old that speaks and writes and behaves more like a 40 year old hard-boiled detective just seems a bit ridiculous at times.
    • 5/5
      Nickel is 12 and a survivor. He escaped from a horrible foster care situation as is living on his own. He makes his money growing and selling pot, blackmailing internet predators, and working as a private detective. He handles cases with kids for free. When Arrow comes to him because her 11 year old sister Shelby is missing, Nickel gets on the case. He quickly finds a nasty ring of child selling which brings back the memories of the life he managed to escape. Nickel is a terrific hero in a black hat. I fell in love with him and wanted to take him home to take care of.
    • 3/5
      Nickel Plated was definitely a lot different than anything I've read lately. Nickel is the type of character that only comes along once in a while, because he's a little bit tough to love. In fact it took me a few chapters to really get into who he was, but once I was invested in him I learned a lot. He's self-sufficient and has financial freedom that most people my age dream about. On top of that he is so multi-faceted. A hard kid on the exterior, but a lost little boy who just is looking for something to hold onto on the interior.

      I'm not really sure what to say about this book other than that I enjoyed it. It's a different kind of read because I was following Nickel on his money making ventures and sleuthing most of the time. He's a great kid. Granted he often uses people for money, but he does some really touching things in this book to help other people out as well. Watching him lead his own life was really fascinating. Nickel has to fly under the radar to stay out the foster care system. To say he is a smart kid is an understatement.

      The point is that I enjoyed this book, but I also think that it wasn't really for me at this time. I'm kind of torn between enjoying Nickel and feeling like he was kind of a hard character to love. I see that he has to act like an adult because that's the situation that he's been put in, however he just felt so tough sometimes. It's a hard read for sure. I really just wanted to give him a hug. This book contains some tough subjects, as well as some "colorful" language. Perhaps it just wasn't the right time for me to read it.

      I'm going to keep this on my pile and pick it up again in a bit, but for now I'm going to give a middle of the road rating. I liked Nickel, I liked his story, I think my mind just wasn't in the right place to really appreciate this book.
    • 2/5
      Nickel is a twelve year old runaway who’s gone underground. He escaped the foster care system two years earlier, after years of abuse, and now he’s on his own. Now, if there’s a job you need done, whether it’s spreading counterfeit money or tracking down your son, he’s your guy. Carefully camouflaged as a typical kid, he’s rarely noticed. A survivor, he’s observant, paranoid and well-armed. He’s a risk taker, with no compunction about blowing up a telephone pole with a pipe bomb if he thinks it will get him the information he needs. Nickel also sells pot and blackmails pedophiles to pay the bills. Since he has this money to support himself, he can take on the case when Arrow asks him to search for her missing sister. For Nickel, rescuing other kids from bad situations, and especially sexual predators close to him. He has taken the name Nickel as a tribute to fellow victims Eleanor and Nick.

      Nickel Plated gets into dark territory. Child pornography, chatting up pedophiles, kidnapping and selling children. The author leaves quite a bit unsaid- we can guess, but don’t know for sure, exactly what happened with Nickel before he finally escaped foster care, because he’s never able to fully talk about it. And there is no real happy ending. While it can be awfully hard to sympathize with Nickel who sometimes needs a motherly hug. Unusual, thought-provoking, and horrifying at times,

      While the book was a little over the top, I did like the James Bondness of the story. At times my heart raced as Nick's life was threatened as he tried to save the innocents.

      Highly recommended!
    • 5/5
      Outstanding.

      Okay, no twelve year old can really do all this, but suspend your disbelief and this is a great read. So good, I'm looking for a sequel...or six. Since Nickel is young, he surely has a lot more adventures to come. If you like Flavia De Luce, you will love Nickel.
    • 4/5
      ☊ This gets 4 stars as a rounding off; the audio presentation was 5 stars and very well done, which brings it up. The story was more like 3 stars, brought up in part because of Nickel's mission in life.

      Nickel is a young boy who has runaway from an abusive foster care situation involving child pornography and abuse, although the little reveals through the book end up revealing virtually nothing. He makes money by selling marijuana via Gary, a high school student who shows up briefly in the sequel, and by various scams and private investigative work. No one knows he's so young until they meet him, so this isn't particularly believable.

      Early in the book Nickel is hired by Arrow, a girl of about 14, who doesn't think the police know what they are doing. Nickel works for virtually nothing for this sort of case and takes it on; the other cases he is working on in the book pivot around this one. They are a money laundering scam, selling pot and helping a mother figure out what is going on with her teen son, Jeff.

      This story is a fun young adult listen; not brilliant, but in this book I find Nickel a character I can like overall, despite his illegal activities, and it's easy to empathize with Arrow and hope for the best for her missing sister, Shelby.
    • 5/5
      I really liked this one a lot! I read it because one of the librarians in my library system complained to me that it should be in the teen fiction section rather than the middle-school/upper-level juvenile fiction. I sort of agree, but not really. I'm conflicted. I love how the author has taken all the conventions of noir fiction and then turned it into really emotionally engaging teen fiction. I've read a couple noir parodies that were published around the same time, but this book takes its conventions seriously. And it takes it's audience seriously. Which is one of the reasons that I like this book being available to younger teens. On the other hand I can understand why a parent might complain. I really ached for Nickel and the other kids in this book who grew up too soon. Childhood, for some kids like Nickel, is more of a battle for survival than it ever should be, for anyone. I love how Nickel's voice was so adult and jaded, but he still talks about eating pizza rolls and chicken fingers. I want someone to take care of Nickel. But you know what, he actually does a pretty good job on his own. Sigh.
    • 5/5
      This is an excellent book. Anyone who enjoys hard-boiled detective noir will be in for a treat if they pick this up. Nickel is a young man who's had a difficult life and been forced to grow up fast and grow up smart. He escaped from his last foster home, and he's vowed to die before going back into the system. This means that he lives on his own, existing on the fringes of society and following no laws but his own. He leads an active life, keeps money flowing in by growing pot and blackmailing perverts he meets on the internet, and solving people's problems... for a price. However, when he is approached by Arrow to find her younger sister after all the adults have given up, his life gets much, much more interesting. Marvelous read, I was hooked from the first page and didn't come up for air until I'd finished the whole book.
    • 4/5
      Woh! This book was action packed, edgy and put me incredibly on edge at times. For fans of action, and all things controversial, or any one who's been wronged by an adult, I recommend reading on because Nickel Plated is a book practically written for you. The story follows Nickel, a twelve year-old boy who's history in foster homes has caused him to grow up rather quickly. He now lives on his own, hiding behind lies and using scams to make money. When young, beautiful Arrow comes to him looking for help in finding out what happened to her missing sister, Nickel realizes that until now he's gotten off easy- coming out alive isn't a given anymore, and now that he's got something to live for, dying isn't an option.Nickel is the strong willed, intelligent, hero for all kids who have ever been wronged by an adult. He bends the law and hides behind a extravagantly woven tale, yet not once will a reader find him/herself chiding him for his wrongs. Everything he does seems to be the price for avenging the hurt of many children who weren't able to do it themselves. This book had drugs, counterfeit money, marijuana, fighting, guns, sex offenders and child trafficking. The scary part of this novel, to me, was not all that it contained, but that fact that it took a twelve year-old to try to fix the situation. I was lucky to have a happy childhood, sheltered from dangerous adults. But I wasn't sheltered from the truth, I know the terrors that some children go through, and Nickel Plated is like the power anthem for all of those victims. In that way, Nickel Plated wasn't just a story about all that is wrong in the world, it was a story about making everything right and showing children that not only do they not have to subject themselves to the will of dangerous and sick adults, but they have the power to make a difference. Nickel Plated is a kick-ass novel (literally) that boys will love, and girls will enjoy as well (after all, I am a girl). I would highly recommend it to teens 13 and up.*Thanks to Amazon Encore for supplying me with an advanced reader's copy