I'm making my new year's resolution a little early this year: I will blog more frequently. My track record isn't good but I'm not willing to give up yet.
The last book I read was Jerk, California by Jonathan Friesen. It's the story of a boy, Sam, with Tourette's syndrome who ends up taking a road trip to the city in the title. Only it turns out Sam's name is not really Sam but Jack--after his mother remarried, his stepfather decided that he didn't like the name Jack Keegan and so renamed the boy Sam Carrier. But at the beginning none of us, readers and Sam himself, know this. It's all revealed as Sam meets people who knew his father. The storytelling jumps around a bit--just like Jack's twitchy shoulders. That made it a little hard for me to get into the story but once I did the story wouldn't let me go. Self-awareness, acceptance, family, a little romance and a big dose of what it's like to live with Tourette's made this a book I won't forget for a long time. Highly recommended. For mature middle school and high school.
Books it made me think of:
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time by Mark Haddon (Jerk does for Tourette's what Curious did for Asperger's)
Deadline by Chris Crutcher, small town sports is the connection here
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