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Summary
Summary
Baseball. I'm very good at baseball. Baseball is the only part of my life I have any control over. Baseball is the only reason I'm still in school.
Problem: I'm not out on the field. I'm in here. There's no way you can think about baseball when your body's trapped in a hard chair in a quiet room, and you can't move at all. When you can't feel the shock of the bat running up your arm into your shoulder. When you can't feel the whump! of the ball in your glove.
When the girl you've been in love with since seventh grade walked off mad, and as usual she's going to stay that way till you crawl like a dog.
In this new novel from the acclaimed author of Damage, Colt Trammel's life is falling apart. His girlfriend has dumped him (again), and his mother has told him that unless he can raise his GPA to a C, she won't let him play baseball anymore. The next six weeks will test Colt in a way he's never been tested before, and how he gets through them is hilarious, poignant, and powerfully believable.
Reviews (5)
School Library Journal Review
Gr 8 Up-In his sophomore year at his Texas high school, Colt Trammel feels that he's reached the top. After all, he's a baseball star and a leading jock, and he's part of the school's elite social group. Not that there aren't problems: Colt hates school (thanks largely to an undiagnosed learning disability), and his grades are so bad that his sports eligibility is in danger. Added to the mix are problems with his beautiful and brainy girlfriend, who stays rather prim during their makeout sessions. When a girl with green hair transfers to his high school, Colt is disconcerted by the fact that he finds her interesting when the school social code dictates that he should ignore her. Corrine ends up tutoring Colt in English and by the end of the novel they've formed an unlikely friendship. She manages to see that Colt is a good guy underneath his aggressive surface, and he comes to respect her independent spirit. The best part of this novel is the portrait of Colt. Every part rings true, from his rough language and obsession with sex to his need to act cool at all costs. It's also a very funny portrait, without ever lapsing into stereotypes or becoming too broad. Readers looking for a dead-on look at high school will enjoy this novel.-Todd Morning, Schaumburg Township Public Library, IL (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Publisher's Weekly Review
There is redemption and growth at the end of Jenkins's (Damage; Breaking Boxes) brittle high school tale-but whether readers will want to spend a couple hundred pages with the loutish narrator is another matter. Sophomore Colt Trammel cares for only two things: baseball, at which he excels, and Grace, the girl he has always loved. To his teachers and most of his classmates (and probably readers as well), Colt is a stereotypical dumb jock ("One of the few things I've always liked about school is how everybody knows where they fit.... I belong at the top, and everybody knows it"); he, like nearly all the other characters, is recognizable more from teen films than from real life. When his mother threatens to keep him from playing baseball unless he brings up his grades, he turns for help to green-haired new girl Corinne, a dowdy outcast who loves poetry and shops at thrift stores (this would be the Molly Ringwald/Oddball Girl Who Is Really Adorable Once You Get to Know Her archetype). It is Percy Shelley's "Ozymandias" that effects the easily anticipated change in Colt, prompting him to wonder what people will remember about him when he is gone. The book's last few pages are poignant-including a poem by Corinne that casts Colt in a more favorable light-but it is likely a case of too little, too late. Ages 14-up. (Sept.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Horn Book Review
(High School) Colton Trammel seems to have it all: a car, a girlfriend, a star position on the baseball team. As in Damage (rev. 9/01), the author peels back the layers of what seems an enviable life to reveal the pain and self-loathing that lie beneath. For Colt, things start to unravel when he's dumped by his brainy and beautiful girlfriend Grace. But readers will recognize that the high school sophomore has deeper problems than just a failed romance. Though he places great importance on appearances and fitting in (""Why do people think they can dress any way they want? Don't they see that they're outsiders for a reason? That they bring it on themselves by not being and dressing and acting within the rules?""), Colt himself is barely hanging on -- not understanding most of his schoolwork, worried about answering questions in class, and getting by with the aid of cheat sheets. Jenkins shows admir able restraint by not defining Colt's learning disabilities (he appears to be dyslexic), focusing instead on how he uses an aggressive exterior to cover his fears of exposure, particularly when he spars with his unconventional new classmate, Corinne, as she attempts to tutor him in English. Unfortunately, the young women in Colt's life -- though well-portrayed as characters -- tend to analyze him (Grace: ""Deep down you're very different from the person you try to project. You practically reek of self-confidence -- but I can see this scared little boy peeking out""), adding an unsubtle component to the book. But Colt -- consumed by self-hatred, capable of casual cruelty, and full of false bravado -- remains a remarkably complex figure, one we come to understand, if not like, by the conclusion of this intense first-person narrative. (c) Copyright 2010. The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted. All rights reserved.
Kirkus Review
Colt Trammel swaggers through his sophomore year shoving a huge rebellious streak in his teachers' faces. His cockiness manifests Colt's way of coping with his own weaknesses as a person. Colt knows he's good-looking, a terrific baseball player, a member of the "in" crowd, but mostly, he's sure he's stupid. Actually Colt possesses more basic humanity than many of the older students he admires, but he makes some poor choices before realizing that he has some worth outside of baseball. Written in often profane but believable first-person, Colt defies his teachers as he fails in school, romance, and in his relationships with his friends. Only when he begins to accept two girls he has previously rejected does he begin to realize some of his potential. Jenkins's insight into Colt's adolescent thinking and into the common problems with which he copes will appeal to many young readers. (Fiction. YA) Copyright ©Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Booklist Review
Gr. 8-10. Colt Trammel, popular baseball player and sophomore-class wise guy, knows in his gut that he's a dumb jock, much dumber than most of his classmates and his sexy girlfriend, Grace. But he is determined to cover up his inadequacies with his good looks, athleticism, and clever comments and stunts. His carefully crafted persona begins to crumble when Grace jilts him and his failing grades could mean that he won't be eligible to play ball. Then comes intelligent, green-haired Corrine, who becomes Colt's tutor and saddleburr. Colt's fast-talking first-person narrative paints a humorous, poignant portrait of a young man with learning disabilities who is savvy yet self-destructive. The well-drawn young characters will hook both male and female teen readers, who will recognize the high-school insider-outsider culture: its lies and cruelties, and its ultimate preparation for the real world. --Frances Bradburn Copyright 2003 Booklist