Why Does Nobody Ever Call the Police? by Teen Contributor Riley Jensen

In many books, the plot heavily relies on characters committing some kind of crime. I understand why in many of these books the problem has to be fixed by the protagonist alone. Maybe there’s no laws in the world or everyone else is dead or something. But, in a modern time with a modern police force some of the things that happen make me wonder, “why does nobody ever call the police?”

Yes, I do understand that the whole plot of this book rotates around the fact that there is a crime being committed and, yes, I do understand that the book would end very quickly if the police were to get involved. Both of those thing considered, it still makes me ask the seem question. These activities are clearly illegal and harmful to others but everyone is like, “no, I must bring justice to the world on my own.” This usually leads to the character to also committing crimes in order to stop the original criminal which doesn’t make a lot of sense. It’s creating more problems than it’s solving.

The conflict does make the book entertaining but whenever I think about it I’m kind of irritated by how irrational it all is. The same thing happens all the time in realistic movies when there’s some kind of event that solves every problem and you just sit there thinking, “that’s not at all how that works.” As readers I get that we are supposed to just go with the book, but it still doesn’t change the fact that there is a very simple solution to a very big problem.

In the end, this small thing doesn’t ruin the book for me, but I can’t stop myself from thinking that a book could be cut in half if someone had just went down to the police and said, “you know this is kind of a problem and I kind of want it fixed.” As long as the book is entertaining then I suppose it’s fine. But, in real life, we would definitely call the police.

Filed under: Teens