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Searching... Jefferson Public Library | TEEN AUDIOBOOK SONNENBLICK, J. | Searching... Unknown |
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Summary
Summary
"Alex Peter Gregory, you are a moron " Laurie slammed her palms down on my desk and stomped her foot. I get a lot of that. One car crash. One measly little car crash. And suddenly, I'm some kind of convicted felon. My parents are getting divorced, my dad is shacking up with my third-grade teacher. I might be in love with a girl who could kill me with one finger, and now I'm sentenced to baby-sit some insane old guy. What else could possibly go wrong? This is the story of Alex Gregory, his guitar, his best gal pal Laurie, and the friendship of a lifetime that he never would have expected.
Reviews (5)
School Library Journal Review
Gr 8 Up-One night, 16-year-old Alex gets the brilliant idea to drive over to his father's house and tell him off for leaving his mother. However, there are a couple of things wrong with this plan. Alex doesn't have a car, so decides to use his mother's. Also, he doesn't have a license and he's spent the evening drinking the vodka that his father left when he moved out. Alex doesn't get far before he crashes the car and winds up on the neighbor's lawn. That's more than enough to get him arrested for drunk driving and sentenced to community service as a volunteer companion of sorts for Solomon Lewis, a resident at a local nursing home. Sol is a cantankerous emphysema patient who has driven away countless past volunteers. What seems at first like a horrible match-the first words out of Sol's mouth are insults about Alex's posture and intellect-becomes a strong relationship when the two bond over jazz guitar music. Jordan Sonnenblick's story (Scholastic, 2009) unfolds through Alex's first person narration. Narrator Peter Berkrot provides a clear and well-paced performance as the teen. He successfully navigates the more difficult role of Sol, complete with his crotchety personality, Yiddish sayings, and health problems (wheezing, coughing, and difficulty breathing). Listeners are treated to a story of friendship, love, and forgiveness told with humor and heart.-Amanda Raklovits, Champaign Public Library, IL (c) Copyright 2011. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Publisher's Weekly Review
Sonnenblick revisits several key themes from his debut novel, Drums, Girls & Dangerous Pie, to even greater effect here. Narrator Alex Gregory starts off by describing his maiden drinking episode: getting drunk alone, hijacking his mother's car in order to drive to his father's house and give the man a piece of his mind (his parents are separated), and taking an unplanned detour into a neighbor's yard, destroying a lawn gnome. What begins as humor takes on darker implications as the book progresses. Not because Alex has a drinking problem (he never takes another sip in the course of the book), but because of a drunk driver's impact on Sol Lewis, the resident of a nursing home to whom Alex is assigned by Judge J. Trent as part of his community service for his crime. Like Steven's Annette in Drums, Alex's female best friend, Laurie, sticks by him throughout this challenging time. And Sol, who starts out crotchety, turns out to be much wiser below the surface, and far more complicated. He even suggests to Alex that there may be more to the teen's relationship with Laurie than friendship. The bond that guitar-playing forges between Alex and Sol serves not only to make them peers musically, but also personally, allowing Sol to reveal his own past. While readers may figure out the significance of Alex's judge to the broader story before the hero does, they will likely find the ending no less satisfying. Ages 12-up. (Oct.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Horn Book Review
(High School) Overwhelmed by his parents' acrimonious separation and his own general teen angst, sixteen-year-old Alex gets drunk on his father's left-behind vodka, steals his mother's keys while she's out on a date, and crashes her car into the neighbor's front lawn, decapitating a lawn gnome in the process. (That this opening scene is hilarious will clue readers in to the book's lighthearted approach.) In what he feels is a grossly unjust dispensation of justice, Alex is sentenced to one hundred hours of community service at a nursing home and there assigned to Sol Lewis, a notoriously difficult resident with a penchant for practical jokes. What could have been a maudlin tale is instead understated and irreverent, containing only the slightest hint of finger-wagging in deference to its theme of taking responsibility. The main subplots -- Sol's past regrets and love of music (a passion he shareswith Alex); Alex's burgeoning romantic feelings for Laurie, his ""terrifying Goth pixie"" best friend -- are organic and consistently enriching, though the relationship between Sol and Alex's sentencing judge feels a tad tidy. Sonnenblick (Drums, Girls & Dangerous Pie, rev. 1/06) deftly infiltrates the teenage mind to produce a first-person narrative riddled with enough hapless confusion, mulish equivocation, and beleaguered deadpan humor to have readers nodding with recognition, sighing in sympathy, and gasping with laughter -- often on the same page. (c) Copyright 2010. The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted. All rights reserved.
Kirkus Review
Sonnenblick's sophomore effort opens with Alex, a 16-year-old guitar-playing wise guy drunkenly crashing his mom's car into a neighbor's lawn gnome. Alex is immediately arrested for underage DUI, and is sentenced, by a Judge Judy no less, to do community-service time in a nursing home. There he must keep company with belligerent, emphysema-ridden, raspy senior citizen Sol Lewis, who takes nothing but pleasure in torturing his young caregiver. Not surprisingly, the two grow closer and closer as the days wear on. Alex gives Sol companionship; Sol gives Alex advice on guitar playing, getting girls and pretty much any other teen problem he might have--each of which wrap up way too neatly in the end. Sonnenblick injects this overused, stale plotline, some of which seems to be repeated from his debut, with an upbeat, punchy style that is both funny and contemporary. It all feels too heartwarming to be true, but his fresh, unique insight into the teen voice will keep the readers chuckling and the pages turning. (Fiction. YA) Copyright ©Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Booklist Review
While his mother is out on a first date, 16-year-old Alex decides to get drunk, steal her car, and drive to his father's home, hoping to catch him romancing one of Alex's former teachers. His goal? Revenge. Reality? A damaged car, a decapitated gnome, a drunk driving charge, and community service. He is ordered to serve his 100 hours visiting Solomon Lewis, the meanest, crankiest resident at Egbert P. Johnson Memorial Home for the Aged. Alex discovers that Solomon is also witty, intelligent, and a fighter--an old man who has lived all the joys, sorrows, and regrets of a long life. Sonnenblick has created a memorable cast of characters: acerbic Sol, a former famous jazz guitarist who is now dying of emphysema; narrator Alex, a budding guitarist with a tendency to make excuses rather than assume responsibility; and Alex's best friend Laurie, a tiny, pixielike karate master whom Sol refers to as Alex's wife. Even minor characters, such as Alex's parents and the judge, take on a heft and weight uncommon in YA literature, and teens will easily connect with Alex's epiphanies: You can't just throw someone out of your life when they displease you, and, We're all free to choose some people to love, and then do it. It all adds up to a funny, bittersweet tour de force. --Frances Bradburn Copyright 2006 Booklist