Following a summer of getting laid and then left by Hallie, Sean spends his senior year rudderless. Despite his newfound friendship with co-worker Neecie and the return of drop-out Hallie it's not until he secretly decides to join the Marines that he finds the direction that will get him out of small town Minnesota.
The long version:
Mesrobian's strength is that she writes really good young adult novels with main characters who are male, she's clearly interested in exploring the lives of boys in their late teens. She's really good at it, judging by her two novels. She's good at finding and maintaining a male voice that's credible and doesn't devolve into teen-boy-fantasy as so many YA novels written by women do. More than writing credible male characters, you really get the sense she enjoys exploring how boys of that age are.
This is a fine character piece, Sean is endearing and entertaining, and his unique and complex friendship with Neecie over the course of the book is what was most interesting. But there isn't a lot of plot to drive the story along. It's very character focused, whether it's Sean and his relationship with his brother, mother or absent, recovering alcoholic father. Sean and his relationship with his friend Eddie. Sean and Hallie. Sean and Neecie. Which may be why I found it so hard to push through, despite it being under 300 pages. The book was a lot like it's main character, a little rudderless, wanting for a bit more wind to propel it.
Which didn't prevent it from being a perfectly good read.
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