Hold Tight has multilayered characters. To some extent this adds to the mystery, but after a point it appears to be too much of unnecessary detail. The book's subtitle "every family has its secrets" says most of it. When children transition to young adults parents have a difficulty in letting go. Parents worry that their kids are impressionable and not mature enough to differentiate between bugs and drugs. This fear of children's well being may drive them to do insane acts like spying on their kids. The book's story is how circumstances lead Tia and Mike Baye to spy on their sixteen-year-old son Adam. They install a sophisticated spy program on Adam's computer, and within days they are jolted by a message from an unknown correspondent addressed to their son: 'Just stay quiet and all safe.'
The book is a huge advertisement in favour of children's right to privacy. It is funny that the Western civilizations accept youngsters going wild (over sex, drugs, alcohol, guns, etc.) in their adolescent years and but not the parents of the same adolescents going cuckoo on seeing their kids' transition through puberty. Eastern civilizations -- Chinese, Japanese, Indian -- allow parents to hold their children in tight(er) reins. I am a 30 year old independent woman and my parents still worry about my whereabouts every single day. They still monitor my friends and food selection. I think their idea of giving their children freedom is that they 'allow' me and my brother to do whatever we want with our lives but we still are answerable to them! Of course I do keep many parts of my life private from them, but I appreciate their concern. As long as they are simply inquisitive and not overtly judgmental about my choices, I see no harm in keeping them involved in my life.
Privacy is a double edged sword -- it gives you a protected space to experiment and grow, but at the same time it keeps you from learning to deal with even mildly unpleasant circumstances. Privacy is meant to guard, but now it has convulsed to something ugly. In the name of right to privacy, I see college students hiding their grades from their parents who pay for their fees. This is simply to avoid any rebuke for their shortcomings and not because discussing grades would disturb the balance of the world. It seems to me protection is a fancy word for protectionism. So in this sense, I did not appreciate the moral dilemma in this book. Parents will be snoopy, teenagers will do groupie. Big deal! Now, can someone focus more on catching the actual villain?