Book Synopsis:
Things usually do not go as planned for seventeen-year-old Noah. He and his best friend Walt (aka Swing) have been cut from the high school baseball team for the third year in a row, and it looks like Noah’s love interest since third grade, Sam, will never take it past the “best friend” zone. Noah would love to retire his bat and accept the status quo, but Walt has big plans for them both, which include making the best baseball comeback ever, getting the girl, and finally finding cool.
To go from lovelorn to ladies’ men, Walt introduces Noah to a relationship guru—his Dairy Queen-employed cousin, Floyd—and the always informative Woohoo Woman Podcast. Noah is reluctant, but decides fate may be intervening when he discovers more than just his mom’s birthday gift at the thrift shop. Inside the vintage Keepall is a gold mine of love letters from the 1960s. Walt is sure these letters and the podcasts are just what Noah needs to communicate his true feelings to Sam. To Noah, the letters are more: an initiation to the curious rhythms of love and jazz, as well as a way for him and Walt to embrace their own kind of cool. While Walt is hitting balls out of the park and catching the eye of the baseball coach, Noah composes anonymous love letters to Sam in an attempt to write his way into her heart. But as things are looking up for Noah and Walt, a chain of events alters everything Noah knows to be true about love, friendship, sacrifice, and fate.
My Review:
3/5 stars. I enjoyed this book throughout most of it, but I didn't like the ending. The majority of the book is mundane but entertaining teenage life, a compelling love story, and a small mystery with the American flags. In the end, none of the plot threads went anywhere and it felt like the book was written just to be a political statement.
This is a book written in verse. Not poetry that rhymes, but free verse. In general, I don't get the point of books in free verse. You can still use poetic devices and have deep meaning without it needing to be formatted as poetry. I'm not into poetry, so maybe there's some reason for it I don't understand, but those are my thoughts. It didn't make my reading experience any worse, it just seemed pointless.
I was invested in the love story between Noah and Sam. I love the best-friends-to-lovers trope, and all the art/messages Noah made for her were really sweet and romantic. Unfortunately, the characters were together for a few pages and then realized they "didn't work for each other," which was disappointing. I wanted better for Noah.
I was also intrigued by the mysterious American flags, a plot I was promised in the blurb to be very important. It wasn't actually that important, and the mystery was never revealed. Related to the flags, though, I did like the parts talking about freedom. At one point, a Bible verse about loving righteousness and hating evil was quoted. It didn't say it was a Bible verse, but I knew it was and it was nice to see.
The political statement the authors seemed to be making was an anti-police one, which I didn't like. I disagree with the sentiment that all police officers are racist and shouldn't have so much power. Of course, there are bad people that abuse their power, but the ending of this book made it seem like the authors were against all police.
Speaking of the ending, I didn't feel any emotional reaction to Walt/Swing's death. It came out of nowhere and, again, felt like a political statement. It was just another unresolved plot, like all the others in this story.
Content:
Language: p*ssed, d*mn (spelled out differently but still the word)
Sexual Content: kissing that isn't described in detail, mention of being a virgin, mentions of characters wanting to go too fast in their relationships, the word "sexy"
Violence/Gore: a character gets shot but it isn't described much
Drugs/Alcohol: underage characters bring beer to a party and get drunk, a character mentions trying marijuana once
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