Rhino's run

Ronnie Rhinehart, nicknamed Rhino for his size and strength as captain of the football team, didn't start the fight with Josh, a zealous young gun-control activist, during a school assembly. But he finished it with a perfectly timed right hook. As a result, both of them are placed in a therapy group with other troubled youths, where they're expected to work out their differences. Things get more complicated when Keith, a long-bullied member of the group, shows up armed with a rifle and an intention to use it on fellow students. Though Keith is thwarted, this experience rocks Ron's sense of purpose, making him question what it truly means to be a captain and a leader. Veteran author Lipsyte delivers an empathetic story of a young man grappling with the complex modern world, where deadly violence has become an all-too-real possibility for people his age. Ron is a very personable protagonist--gruff and direct, yet thoughtful and compassionate--and through his POV, the reader is able to feel the aspects of his life pushing and pulling him in all directions. Exquisite character work combined with hard-hitting subject matter shows that some 60 years since his debut novel, Lipsyte has not lost a single step.

A high school athlete struggles to find his footing amid violent events and polarizing local politics. Hot-button issues crowd the pages of Lipsyte's latest, as an impulsive punch to a classmate's jaw lands football co-captain Ronald "Rhino" Rhinehart in a mandatory therapy group that he shares with both his victim, an abrasive gun control activist, and unstable teen Keith Korn, who brings a rifle to school one day and tries to kill himself. Meanwhile, tensions in Rhino's family and town are rising with the approach of the 2016 presidential election, and Rhino's own hopes for a future in college ball take hits, even as spiteful rival teammate John Cogan spreads unfounded rumors that he's gay and engineers an on-field ambush that leaves him with a serious concussion. Events escalate: A teacher is scapegoated for the gun incident, Rhino's belligerent coach ignores Cogan's bullying, and violence strikes Rhino's personal circle and wider community. Still, for all his struggles to get his head straight (medically as well as morally), Rhino proves to be a calm eye amid the tumult, and if the results of his actions and choices seem a little too pat, his sharp intelligence, range of interests beyond football, and fundamental drive to do the right thing will leave readers solidly on his side. Rhino is white; there's diversity in the supporting cast. A jumbo package of provocative contemporary issues centered on an appealing protagonist.(Fiction. 13-17) Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.