Wallace flattens the sophomore jinx in this taut, present-tense
tale of an underdog high-school soccer team battling internal
dissension, set in the same Pennsylvania town as his strong debut,
Wrestling Sturbridge (1996). Friends and soccer nuts since grade
school, Barry and Joey bring new life to a team that was 2-11-1
last year, but their relationship is undergoing a power shift.
Joey's need to dominate is getting on Barry's nerves, on the field
- where his reluctance to pass the ball is costing games - and off:
He cuts in on Barry's pursuit of Shannon, a luscious schoolmate.
The more the buddies drift apart, though, the harder Joey plays,
and through a series of exciting games he takes the team to a
climactic try at the local league championship. Meanwhile, Barry
arranges to be alone with Shannon at a party, and Joey retaliates
by getting him fired from the inn where they both work. The
friends' rift is healed by an exchange of knuckles and twin attacks
of common sense. Wallace's teenage characters - all involved in
athletics - are drawn from life and mostly likable; adults stay in
the background, but Barry enjoys an unusually close relationship
with his savvy college-age brother, Tommy, a font of good advice.
Thanks in part to occasional descriptive asides, Sturbridge takes
on a distinctive character, too: It's a small, ethnically diverse,
sports-focused town, limited in its opportunities but not as
confining as it seemed in the previous book. Engrossing fare.
(Kirkus Reviews)
It's soccer season, and sophomore Bones Austin and his team are struggling to make it to the district play-offs--against all odds. To make matters worse, Bones has a crush on the girlfriend of his best friend, Joey. Bones and Joey are forced to learn a little something about teamwork, even when hard times seem to be tearing them apart. Rich Wallace returns to Sturbridge, Pennsylvania, in his stunning follow-up to Wreslting Strubirdge, in Knopf Paperback for the first time.
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