Curveball: The Year I Lost My Grip (Jordan Sonnenblick)

****

         The summer before his freshman year, Peter Friedman's baseball career is put to a premature end by an injury he's been trying to hide all season.  Peter is diagnosed with an awful-sounding condition and told that he will never pitch again.  He is coming to terms with his injury while trying to find a way to tell his highly insensitive best friend, AJ, that he won't be trying out for the team in the spring.  In the meantime, he lands a job as athletics co-editor of the yearbook with a beautiful girl from his photography class.  And on top of everything else, Peter is at a loss as to how he can help his grandfather, who has been acting very strangely.

         This book is an easy, quick read - it only took me a few hours - but it is also really good.  I love Jordan Sonnenblick's work because he is able to capture the lives of (usually unhappy) teens in a very amusing way.  Curveball is a laugh-out-loud kind of book.  Peter's problems, from his arm injury to his mentally declining grandfather to attractive and flirtatious girls, feel very real and relatable.  This book would be easy to read when you don't have much free time, without losing out on good writing.  If you like it, definitely try Sonnenblick's other books (especially Drums, Girls, and Dangerous Pie and Notes from the Midnight Driver).

Rating: 4/5
Completed: June 4, 2012