Romance, vandalism, and villainy link Driver's Ed with Robert Cormier's We All Fall Down (1991), although the romance between Jane Jerome and Buddy Walker in the latter is more poignant than that between Remy and Morgan. Buddy is one of four young males who vandalizes the Jerome home and tries to apologize for this act of vandalism by calling Jane but not identifying himself. Eventually when they meet by chance at the mall she reaches out to him for his being vulnerable and lonely, the same emotions she feels since the trashing of her home. When she learns of Buddy's involvement in this act she feels emotionally vandalized and victimized by him.

This betrayal shatters the love she had for him and is replaced eventually with pity.

Law and prosecution have a much more frustrating outcome in We All Fall Down because Harry Flowers, the mastermind of...