Imagine playing on a football team, practicing daily, but come game day sitting on the bench. Jeb's football days looked this way, until the star quarterback is injured and out for the rest of the season with only the state championship game left. Jeb is pulled up to starting quarterback and a college recruiter wants to check him out. Will Jeb fail under the pressure or advance his football career?

A YA novel with football excitement. ( )

Zeb’s okay being second string. As backup quarterback, he lives in the shadows. Then, before the state championship, the star quarterback’s injured, and the pressure & expectations fall on Zeb like they never have before.

Grades: 7-10
Characterization: Very Good
Literary Merit: Good
Recommendation: Recommended for larger collections

When high school football phenom T.T. Munroe gets injured a week before the state championship football game, the position of starting quarterback falls to second stringer Zeb Holloway. In Zeb’s small New Hampshire town, high school football is a big deal to most people even if it doesn’t mean much to Zeb’s mom and uncle. Zeb’s life is not glamorous, and being put in the spotlight takes some getting used to. In the week leading up to the big game, Zeb is forced to consider his life and his future in a way he never has before.

Monninger succeeds in creating layered and compelling characters that rise above the expected stereotypes. Zeb’s mother and uncle both have their issues but genuinely care about him. His best friend Hawny provides comic relief that is actually pretty funny (even to a non-teenage boy). Even his mother’s boyfriend Arthur has some depth, and the dynamic between him and Zeb is not dramatic but feels very real. The only characters that fell flat for me were the two female love interests Stella and Ferron, who both felt under-developed.

The writing in this novel is elevated beyond what you would expect in your average sports novel. There were some really lovely sentences and turns of phrase, and the reader gets a real sense of place in the description of Rumney, New Hampshire and its residents.

At 225 pages this book is already pretty short, but it could have been tightened up even more. Dialogue seemed to go on too long at times, and there were a few incidents that didn’t really add much to the plot.

Recommendation: Readers looking for intense play by play football action should look elsewhere. This is much more character driven than the typical sports novel. ( )