Last weekend I had dinner with a group of authors from Rochester who were in town for the Albany Children’s Book Festival, and the topic of YA romance came up. Someone asked if we knew of a romance from a male protagonist’s point of view. No one could think of one at the time, but as I thought about it later (because we always think of the answer as soon as it’s too late), Andrew Smith’s new novel 100 Sideways Miles (Simon & Schuster, 2014) came to mind.
Far from a traditional or formulaic story about first love, 100 Sideways Miles nonetheless captures perfectly what it is like to be in love for the first time and wondering how it could have ever happened to you. High school senior Finn Easton is an above average student, a mediocre baseball player, and not especially good-looking, especially in comparison with his best friend Cade Rodriguez, the team’s star pitcher and the school troublemaker who always seems to get away with it. (Cade’s nickname is “Win-Win.”) Besides Cade, Finn has two other shadows to escape—the aftermath of a freak accident involving a dead horse on the way to the knackery that killed his mother and left him with epilepsy, and his starring role in his father’s best-selling novel. Finn’s first encounter with newcomer Julia Bishop is rather inauspicious: Julia encounters Finn in the middle of a grand mal seizure on his doorstep. Still, the two become close, and Finn learns to trust Julia and believe he deserves the love of someone special.
Finn’s unique narrative voice—he measures time in distance rather than seconds and minutes—and determination to go forth with his life despite (and ultimately in defiance of) the hand he has been dealt make him a memorable and inspiring character. Readers gradually see him emerging from the shadow of his father, his best friend, and his injury. While the lack of any mention of medical care or medication for his frequent seizures (particularly hard to believe since his stepmother, with whom he has a positive relationship, is a pediatric nurse who cared for him after the accident) left me with questions, the strong characterizations, humor, and well-paced storytelling make this a novel boys will want to read and read again. Just don’t tell them it’s a romance.
My review of 100 Sideways Miles is part of the exclusive Lady Reader’s Bookstuff Blog Tour. That means you can enter a drawing to win your own copy of the novel at this site. And if you still have trouble deciding, other reviews of the novel are scheduled for this week; check the updated schedule when you sign up for the drawing.
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