Let me start with the good. Since I haven’t done a review in a while, I don’t want to start with negativity.
The story within this book is amazing. It starts with our main character driving by an accident with his mom and sister. The reader finds out within a few pages that the accident would changed their lives forever. The story is told strictly from the point of view of the main character, Paulie. He’s an upper elementary aged boy with an older sister and dog. He lives with his mom, his grandparents live across the road, and his aunt lives nearby and takes care of the kids when the mom can’t.
The story is set in Texas during a time when desegregating the schools was still happening. In Texas it happened a little slower than other areas.
I enjoyed the story, and I think students could learn a lot from this book.
Now for the negative. Spoilers ahead, so stop here if you don’t want to know.
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The book is written in free verse, which seems to be a trend in YA books lately. Sometimes I love it. I did not love it in the book. It never flowed well. It was more stream of consciousness than free verse. I felt annoyed while reading because I loved the story, but the way it was written just irritated me. I am probably in the minority when it comes to this, though. Don’t let the fact that it’s written in verse deter you from reading it, let the next point deter you!
THE DOG DIES. This book is dead to me now. I cannot handle the dog dying especially when the dog is the only friend the kid has.
Okay, it probably isn’t great of me to judge the book this harshly just because the dog dies, but I hate it when the dog dies! It also probably doesn’t help that we just had to put one of our dogs to sleep recently.
I would recommend this book despite my negative feelings. It has good messages throughout the book about acceptance, love, forgiveness, among other things. I know some of my middle school students would really enjoy this book, so I will probably rate it well when the recommendations start in January.
Michelle Reads & Writes 
Well, the cover art is beautiful and I’ve been reading a lot of YA books in verse lately (they make nice quick reads) but I think it’s best that you warned people about the dog death. I like to know whether a book or movie has stuff like that in it because not only is it sad, it can be really emotionally manipulative sometimes. My dog had to be put to sleep earlier this year too, and stuff like ‘Marley and Me’ made me cry uncontrollably even when she was still alive.
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