Fifteen-year-old Cassie Streng discovers that her stepfather Rick Wheeler, a psychiatrist who works with troubled teens, has been prescribing an experimental behavioral drug that causes delusions and suicidal urges, hiding evidence of its side effects, and forging patients' parents' signatures. Cassie tries to expose him, but before she can get an adult to take her seriously, Rick persuades her mom to send her to Peaceful Cove, a behavioral modification school in Mexico. Inmates at Peaceful Cove are cut off from all contact with the outside world, fed inadequate food, and punished for minor infractions with days in observation placement, in which they spend all day lying on their stomachs on the floor. But despite the rules forbidding low-ranking kids from talking to each other, Cassie manages to befriend Hayley Hedges, a girl who's been in Peaceful Cove for over two years.
Shock Point contains examples of:
- A Birthday, Not a Break: Cassie turns sixteen two weeks into her stay at Peaceful Cove. That day, her class watches a PSA about drug abuse. When the protagonist of the video blows out candles on a cake, Cassie starts to cry. She tries to explain that it's her birthday, and is sent to observation placement for talking without permission.
- But for Me, It Was Tuesday: A month and a half after Cassie arrives at Peaceful Cove, the two men the school hired to kidnap her return to the school with another new inmate. Cassie flinches when she sees them, but they've done this to so many kids that they don't recognize her.
- Chekhov's Gun: Jackie naively backs a snorkel and flippers in Cassie's suitcase. Of course, there is no snorkeling at Peaceful Cove. The staff put Cassie's suitcase in a closet with all the other inmates' possessions, and she doesn't see it for over two months. Until she uses the snorkel to swim out through the pipe that runs under the compound wall and opens into a stream about twenty feet later.
- Fell Asleep Crying: Cassie cries herself to sleep every night at Peaceful Cove. She makes sure to do it quietly so she won't get in trouble.
- Frame-Up: Rick plants crystal meth in Cassie's room so Jackie will agree to send her to Peaceful Cove.
- I Kiss Your Foot: One boy is so desperate to get out of observation placement that he starts crying and kissing a staff member's shoes.
- Maternally Challenged: Hayley's mom is a high-powered executive who doesn't know what to do with her. Hayley's dad used to do all the childcare, but after he left, her mom didn't want anything to do with her. Twelve-year-old Hayley was smoking, breaking curfew, and Skipping School, and her mom didn't think regular boarding schools were strict enough, so she sent her to a reform school in Jamaica. When Hayley was fourteen, that school was shut down for putting kids in kennels with duct tape over their mouths, so her mom sent her along to Peaceful Cove, even though Peaceful Cove is owned by the brother of the man who owned the school in Jamaica.
- Passing Notes in Class: Cassie passes a note to Hayley explaining the situation with Rick.
- Psycho Psychologist: Rick earns $10,000 for every teen he enrolls in the clinical trial for the drug and has also invested in the company that makes it. He's willing to do anything to keep making money from it.
- Run for the Border: After Cassie escapes from Peaceful Cove, she spends several hours hiking in a random direction to put as much distance between herself and the school as possible. Then she starts walking north, trying to aim for San Diego, because she's heard that Peaceful Cove isn't too far south of the border. As she nears the border, she starts finding trash left by immigrants. She finally arrives at a four-foot-high barbed wire fence in the middle of nowhere and realizes she's nowhere near San Diego. She slips through a gap someone cut in the fence, flags down a National Border Watch jeep, and makes up a story about being kidnapped from Tijuana by a mugger who stole her ID and dumped her in the desert.
- Sleeping with the Boss: A year ago, Jackie and Cassie lived in a duplex in Minor. Then Rick hired Jackie as his study coordinator. Before Cassie knew it, Jackie was pregnant by Rick, the two got married, and Rick moved the family to Portland. Cassie thinks he wanted to flee Minor so his patients' families wouldn't find out what he'd done. Jackie eventually realizes that Rick pretended to love her to distract her from asking questions about the drug. Jackie was so starved for male attention, especially from someone as charming as Rick, that she made an easy mark.
- Thirsty Desert: Peaceful Cove is surrounded by miles and miles of desert. The last kid who tried to escape was later found dead from dehydration. Cassie escapes with half a gallon of water. She spends about three days hiking through the desert, during which she drinks all her water and becomes very dehydrated.
- Title Drop: During a visit from Cassie's father Steve, Father Gary calls Peaceful Cove "a shock point to force Cassie out of her comfort zone, to make her see what her choices have done to her and to you."
- Victoria's Secret Compartment: Hayley secretly prints out instructions for how to use the compass in Cassie's watch and hides them in her bra. She smuggles the paper to Cassie, who puts it in her own bra.
- Working Out Their Emotions: Twice a week, Cassie's group is allowed to play soccer. Everyone looks forward to it, even kids like Cassie who weren't previously interested in sports, because it's the only outlet for their anger and misery. Cassie spends the games kicking and bulldozing everyone who gets in her way. Other girls use dirty moves like yanking her to the ground by her ponytail.
