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) This follows a high school jock, Scott, who is obsessed with himself and baseball. Life is going fine until he finds out his best friend is gay; the same best friend that has just moved in with him after being kicked out of his own house. Scott doesn't know what to do or how to handle it. He's so homophobic that he wants to be tested for AIDs after touching some of his friend's blood. Much of the town is semi-homophobic, but there are a lot more homosexuals there than most people know. Scott soon finds this out, along with some things about himself. He also finally gets closure on his parents' divorce.
It's alright, nothing new or obviously original. Lots of baseball references. Nothing more than an 'okay' read. This author can do much better.
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) The main character, Paul, is a teen boy just about to graduate a semester early from high school. He's the star basketball player and has straight A's. The catch is his anger issues: contributing factors to this include his absent father and vegetable of a brother. His father won a Pulitzer prize for a poem he wrote about their non-reactant brother, but yet he's never around to care for him or anyone else. The brother, Shawn, is a continued source of embarrassment and annoyance for Paul. These things add up to the worst but most fulfilling violent outrages a boy his age can have. He comes very close to killing a large man from road rage. Only a friend could stop him. Also, only further intervention by others he cares about can improve his current ways of living.
This is very poor compared to the first book I read by Trueman,
Inside Out. The character development continues to be incredibly excellent, but the story is lacking here.
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) Very (seemingly-)unintentionally hilarious story about a paranoid schizophrenic teenage boy stuck in the middle of an armed robbery. It's short, sweet, and to the point. I would highly recommend it on humor value alone. Of course, the situation isn't funny, but the dialogue between the characters (due to the lack of understanding) is incredibly comical for such an intense circumstance. On the downside, the schizophrenic perspective is displayed as a text-book portrait with even the kid identifying 'subjects' and 'emotions' that he cannot mentally grasp. However, it displays the debilitating horror of being struck with mental illness. Overall, it's a quick, knee-slapping read that will leave you excited to read what is hopefully another cleverly-crafted dark humor novella by Trueman.
(
) This follows a high school jock, Scott, who is obsessed with himself and baseball. Life is going fine until he finds out his best friend is gay; the same best friend that has just moved in with him after being kicked out of his own house. Scott doesn't know what to do or how to handle it. He's so homophobic that he wants to be tested for AIDs after touching some of his friend's blood. Much of the town is semi-homophobic, but there are a lot more homosexuals there than most people know. Scott soon finds this out, along with some things about himself. He also finally gets closure on his parents' divorce.
