D.J. Schwenk comes from a dairy farming family in backwoods Wisconsin. Her family struggles to make ends meet even with the farm and her mom working 2 jobs. D.J.'s 2 older brothers are off at college making use of their extreme football talents to rake in the scholarships. This leaves D.J. and her younger brother at home to work the farm. Almost all of the responsibility falls on D.J. because her mom works 2 jobs, her dad has an extremely bad hip, and her younger brother is often off at baseball practice or games.
In this little town sports mean everything to a lot of people. The neighboring town is richer and has a bigger high school. D.J.'s high school and this high school are rivals - in the most extreme sense of the word. When it turns out that D.J. has to train the opposing team's QB all summer she's angry and annoyed. These feelings quickly give way to happiness as she finds a true friend in this QB and soon begins to wonder if maybe she even loves him.
This plot is so simple, yet so intricate. I haven't told you half the details that make this such a great story. Details like D.J. finding out her best friend of 6 years is a lesbian and has kind of considered D.J. to be her unofficial partner. Details like D.J. deciding to try out for her high school football team. You've got to read this!
Even though this is a very lighthearted, fun read and the content is certainly not mature it is a YA book. D.J. is 16, most of the other characters, (other than her parents), that are followed closely in the story are in high school. D.J. experiences the feelings that come with first love and the mixed up feelings she gets when her best friend comes out to her. While the parents (3 sets) in this book are there and pretty involved, they all have their problems and those are made very evident by their children.
There is a very minimal amount of profanity used in this book - nothing shocking. There is mention of sex, but in a really non-graphic way. I think teens of all ages could really enjoy this book and connect with it on at least one level.
As I was thinking about how to use this in a school setting one thing kept coming to mind (other than read aloud because this would make a GREAT read aloud. It is so funny!) and that thought was coaching. My dad has coached high school sports for 10 years and sometimes he brings books in to read to his teams, books that are inspiring and encouraging, and sometimes books that grapple with tough things that he thinks his players need to work on, whether it be on the court or in life. I think a coach could use excerpts from this book to teach perseverance, teamwork, overcoming obstacles, and learning to be content living the way that you see fit for yourself.
One last thing to note, the format of this book is pretty straightforward novel writing, but there is a little twist at the end that changes the format just a bit. Throughout the whole book D.J. is writing in first person and you learn, at the end, that she was actually writing it all down to turn in as an English project at school. (I didn't really give anything away. There's more to that story, but you'll just have to read the book to find out what I mean!)
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