How can a pint-sized, smart-ass
eighteen-year-old make his mark on the world from Nowheresville,
Idaho—especially when he only has one year left to do it? When Ben Wolf learns
his senior year of high school will be his last year, period, he is determined
to go out in a blaze of glory.
That means not letting anyone
know about his diagnosis. It means trying out for the football team. It means
giving his close-minded civics teacher a daily migraine. It means going for the
amazingly perfect, fascinating Dallas Suzuki.
But living with a secret isn't
easy . . . What will Ben do when he realizes he isn't the only person who's
keeping one?
It is time for Idaho on the Reading
Across America challenge. Honestly, I have mixed feelings on the book. With these feelings I decided
to scope out Goodreads
for some reviews to see what other readers thought. On the most part, readers
enjoyed the book, but there were some mixed reviews as well.
Some of the reviews said the book was geared too much towards teenage
boys or that the book was too preachy. I agree that the book
is geared pretty heavily towards boys as the football scenes were detailed and
just a little too lengthy. What I don’t understand is why that is a bad thing? The
reviewer clearly meant that to be a negative point of the book. Presently, most fiction in the young adult
genre is written for teenage girls. Twilight, Matched series, and paranormal
romances in general are very much geared towards teenage girls. Why is a book
geared towards boys bad? That being said as a female, Deadline really didn’t feel like it worked for me on a personal
reading level.
BUT, I am not reading these books just for personal enjoyment. This is
to become more familiar and knowledgeable with young adult reads. You know, be a better children’s librarian! This
will require to read things that I may not personally relate to or enjoy. The best thing I think I could do to continue
this book’s particular discussion is to do a good and bad list.
Good:
- Main character, Ben Wolf, had great development and is a protagonist you could really go for. His thought process dealing with death and his change of heart in regards to his brother, Cody, and crush, Dallas Suzuki. Ben is one that readers will cheer for. A diminutive, smart ass 18 year old with nothing to lose? Dangerously awesome sauce.
- Relatability. If I were faced with the situation that is presented to Ben, I would probably have a similar sentiment. Live my life to the fullest extent? Check. Confess my love for my crush? Check. Find a way to leave my legacy? Check. This situation is not pleasant of course, but a character being relatable despite imminent death is pretty impressive.
- The writing. Funny and witty, perfect voice of our smart ass hero!
Bad:
- Secondary characters were rather flat. The town drunk, Rudy McCoy, was the closest to being well developed, but he ended up just being disturbing instead. The brother, Cody, seemed a little too cool about his brother dying. In fact, besides Dallas and his mother, I think everyone seemed a little too cool about Ben dying.
- The football talk did seem a little overdone. Most of the first half of the book seemed obsessed with discussing football strategy and giving play-by-plays of the big game. I get it Crutcher, you love your sports and athletic short stories, but those shouldn’t take up most of the book, when there is so much more to discuss.
- Definitely preachy in some respects. This was made apparent when Ben combated his teacher. Now I am not saying the teacher was in the right, in fact the teacher was portrayed as a real D-Bag. Racism and bigorty, sadly enough, are still relevant to current events, but Malcolm X is not. What's sad is that there are other examples of bigorty that are far more current. That being said, the whole Malcolm X plot just felt like it was getting out of hand.
- The ending felt rushed. Even though Dallas clearly had issues with Ben. She just seemed to magically resolve her issues to say good bye. It just felt like everything else was secondary to the plot after football season.
Well that is 12 down, 38 more to go!
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