Review: Boy21 by Matthew Quick

Boy 21 by Matthew Quick
Reviewed by Noelle: May 9, 2012
Published March 5, 2012 by Little, Brown Books for Young Readers
Goodreads • Buy on Amazon • Kindle 

Finley's entire life is basketball and he trains tirelessly even though he's nowhere near the best player on the team.  As his dad says, effort can outwork talent.  Basketball consumes his every waking thought and he wouldn't have it any other way.  Without basketball and the team he'd have too much time to remember all of the things he's desperate to forget.  Russ is new to town, a basketball phenom whose love of the game died with his parents.  Now he's calling himself Boy21, saying he's an alien life form and obsessed with outer space.  Can Finley do as his coach asks and somehow help Russ, even if it means giving up his hard earned starting spot?

"Sometimes a player's greatest challenge is coming to grips with his role on the team."

--Scottie Pippen 

"No matter how good one player is defensively, he's only as good as his help defense." (source)

And that is exactly what Boy21 is about---except Matthew Quick isn't talking about basketball.  He's talking about life.  Sure, basketball brings Finley and Russ together and at different times and in different ways it acts as a savior for both boys.  But as all consuming and amazing and beautiful as it can be, both Finley and Russ are forced to experience how tragedy can make anything insignificant--even your heretofore reason for living.  Sometimes it doesn't matter how much you love something.  Real life has a way of changing your priorities and when it does, it's the team you have around you that counts.

All of Matthew Quick's trademarks are here: rough neighborhood, sad histories, finding (non-romantic) love in a hopeless place, unconventional friendships and support systems, a tragic event, and behind it all a hope so earnest it's almost hard to endure.  

There's a shift in direction between the first and second half and I think there is some confusion created by the change of focus.  Some decisions and conclusions seem very abrupt.  Still, there's much to love about Boy 21, especially the relationships between Finley, his dad and Pops and Finley and Russ.  Like Sorta Like a Rock Star, the ending is a little too convenient to seem wholly realistic but by the time you get there you are so won over by the protagonists that you are willing to forgive just about anything to believe good things can happen for them.

You might not know this about me but I'm a huge basketball fan.  Obviously I loved reading such a well done basketball book.  It's fitting though that I finished this book the same night I watched my favorite team get eliminated in the NBA playoffs.  But instead of being bummed, thanks to Matthew Quick, maybe tonight I'll go out on my porch, look at the stars and think about things bigger than basketball.

Rating: 3.5 stars with an inclination to round up to 4 stars.

Review: Sorta Like a Rock Star by Matthew Quick

Sorta Like a Rock Star by Matthew Quick
Review by Noelle: September 21, 2011
Published May 1, 2010 by Little Brown and Company
Goodreads • Buy at Amazon • Buy at Fishpond • Kindle










Irrepressible hope and relentless optimism are amazing and impressive...and you know what else? Extremely annoying. Yes, dear readers, I was one of those people giving Amber Appleton the side-eye for the entire first half of the book. 

Sure, I empathized with her horrible situation and admired the spunk in her survival skills but I still resisted the crap out of her charm. I found her hugging obsession creepy. Her “JC” name dropping made me itch. Her slang felt unnaturally shoehorned into her otherwise SAT-word laden inner dialogue. Her group of “special” school friends felt just too precious to be real. And for goodness sake, did she have to give everything five word nicknames just to use the acronym for it?! Amber would do something promising and then follow it up with something that made me cringe.

Yet I stuck around for a couple reasons, the main one being Amber is not portrayed as trying to be perfect. She gets offended and swears and lashes out. Amidst all the “up with people!” moments there were also glimpses of a teenager I could recognize--an angry, unappreciated, emotional adolescent that I found extremely easy to root for. I think my opinion of Amber permanently turned around after her interactions with the Korean Divas for Christ, Private Jackson and even Joanie of Old (see what I mean about nicknames?). For all of her inappropriate methods and pushiness, Amber has such a good heart. Even though at times her world must seem so small, Amber never sees it that way. Her hope makes it endless. Amber not only recognizes the loneliness around her, she is genuinely interested in these people’s lives. She sees what makes them who they are and without making a big deal about it, celebrates it every day. She will shine her floodlight of hope on anyone who gives her the chance.

She really, truly is sorta like a rock star. 


And then Amber’s already extremely shitty life gets horribly worse and Amber's belief system is shaken to the core.  I realized that I too had been just one more person underestimating Amber’s value and how much I’d grown to depend on her enthusiasm and optimism. 

Yes, there is a definite cheesiness factor here between the After School Specialness of the Five and the nature of the ending, but dammit if I didn't soak it all up like a freaking hopeful sponge. You won this one, Amber Appleton.

Also, the haikus--the last two in particular--were, as Amber would say, some good hooey.


Rating: 4/5 stars  I definitely recommend this book.