Review by New York Times Review
for teenage boys, sports can be a kind of emotional centerboard, helping to keep them from capsizing during the turbulence of adolescence. Or they can be an anchor, holding them too close to a familiar shore, preventing them from venturing into unknown waters, from finding out who they really are. In these two young adult novels, we see both sides. Ezra Faulkner, the blue-eyed, cleft-chinned, wisecracking protagonist of "The Beginning of Everything," was the captain of his high school tennis team before he totaled his BMW and was left barely able to walk. His sports career is over, and with it the easy identity of the jock. "Eastwood High used to be mine, the one place where everyone knew who I was and it felt as though I could do no wrong," Ezra reflects, alone on the school's tennis courts with his recently acquired cane, the night before the start of his senior year. His new life begins the next day, as he hobbles into the school gym for the welcome-back pep rally, for the first time taking a seat in the bleachers instead of streaming onto the basketball court with the rest of the varsity athletes. Josh, the brooding hero of "Living With Jackie Chan," is dragged into sports - specifically, karate - by the slightly annoying uncle he's living with for the year. Josh is nursing the wounds of his own crisis (the events in Knowles's 2009 novel "Jumping Off Swings"): He impregnated a girl he'd hooked up with at a party, who had the baby and gave it up for adoption. Progressing through his belts at the local Y.M.C.A., Josh unexpectedly discovers an inner peace in his rhythmic katas and learns that his uncle's cheesy talk about what it means to be a "true karate man" - "one with a godlike capacity to think and feel for others, irrespective of their rank or position" - has a particular relevance to his situation. On the surface, these are very similar books. At the center of each is a vulnerable high school senior struggling to move forward after a life-changing event, "a single encounter after which everything that really matters will happen," as Ezra puts it. They know they will never be the same; they're just not sure who they will be. Both meet unlikely love interests who help them see themselves with fresh eyes. In Ezra's case, it's Cassidy, the smart, ironic, unconventionally pretty "new girl" who dresses as if she's just stepped out of "an old-fashioned movie." In Josh's, it's his uncle's upstairs neighbor and karate partner, Stella. Tonally, though, the books are very different. Set in the suburban Eden of Southern California, "The Beginning of Everything" is all bright colors and rich detail, from Ezra's gated community of six-bedroom Spanish-style homes to the fireworks exploding over Disneyland when he finally kisses Cassidy on the roof of his car. The architecture and archetypes of "The Beginning of Everything" are a little too familiar, right down to the lunch tables that separate Eastwood High's popular kids from Ezra's new crew, misfits who have their own private film club, are on the debate team and participate in flash mobs. Fortunately, Robyn Schneider can write. The flash mob scene is vividly rendered, with Ezra moving awkwardly to a song by the Clash, then, at Cassidy's urging, taking off his headphones to watch hundreds of strangers dancing in utter silence. It's an endearing book filled with similarly touching little moments and plenty of snappy dialogue that may not be quite credible - Cassidy drops in casual references to Shakespeare and Foucault - but makes for entertaining reading, anyway. "Living With Jackie Chan" is darker and more spare, a little less absorbing but ultimately just as affecting. In the aftermath of his own life-changing encounter, Josh leaves everything behind - not just his parents and friends, but all of his photographs of them. "All I really know is that I need to get away, and this is the only chance I have," he says to himself shortly after arriving at his uncle's. In his emotionally broken state, Josh remains a loner. When he's not at the Y, he's usually in the library or in the guest room of his uncle's apartment, punching a Jackie Chan poster after being awakened by the baby upstairs - a persistent reminder of the part of his past that he most wants to leave behind but of course cannot. The whole "karate man" motif is heavy-handed, almost to the point of parody. (It's hard to read the phrase and not think of Eddie Murphy in "Trading Places": "Karate man bruise on the inside!") But there's something undeniably powerful about the stripped-down world that Jo Knowles has created, and the shut-down state in which Josh moves through it, unable to process what he has done and the shame it has made him feel, let alone talk to his nerdy uncle about it. What do our heroes learn from their crises? In a sense, opposite lessons. Josh realizes that he can't run from who he is, that he has to find a way to take responsibility for his actions. Ezra discovers that he can start over, or maybe that he'd been sitting at the wrong table his whole life. "Oscar Wilde once said that to live is the rarest thing in the world, because most people just exist, and that's all," he reflects at the end of "The Beginning of Everything." "I don't know if he's right, but I do know that I spent a long time existing, and now, I intend to live." JONATHAN MAHLER is a columnist for Bloomberg View and a contributing writer at The New York Times Magazine.
Copyright (c) The New York Times Company [November 10, 2013]
Review by Booklist Review
*Starred Review* The way Ezra Faulkner sees it, everyone gets one great tragedy, after which life should roll on predictably. His middle-school best friend, Toby, gets his when a roller-coaster accident brands him a social misfit, and Ezra gets his a week before junior prom, when he, the tennis star and class president shoo-in, is injured by a distracted driver. When senior year begins, Ezra and his destroyed leg slide easily into a new social circle, eschewing the surface attempts of former friends to stay connected and instead joining Toby on the debate team. That's where he meets Cassidy, a beguiling transfer student who helps Ezra discover his new self. To Ezra, it's an idyllic relationship, so when it collapses, his worldview collapses, too hadn't he just recovered from his one great tragedy? Throughout, Ezra reads The Great Gatsby and alludes to parallels found in the classic novel. His story of self-discovery and reinvention is told in past tense, providing just enough distance for bits of reflection and subtle foreshadowing, which serve to enrich characters and build suspense. This thought-provoking novel about smart kids doing interesting things will resonate with the John Green contingent, as it is tinged with sadness, high jinks, wry humor, and philosophical pondering in equal measures.--Booth, Heather Copyright 2010 Booklist
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
First-time novelist Schneider offers an engrossing romance in which tragedy brings two teens together, then threatens to tear them apart. Ezra Faulkner has a bright future as a tennis player until a car accident leaves him with a serious knee injury. Along with losing his spot on the team and his prospects of being recruited by colleges, he is dropped by his popular clique ("I had been Ezra Faulkner, golden boy, but that person no longer existed"). At the onset of senior year, he makes major changes, rekindling a childhood friendship he'd dropped after a gruesome mishap, joining the debate team, and getting to know Cassidy Thorpe, an the enigmatic new student with a reputation as a stellar debater. Ezra is mesmerized by Cassidy's intelligence, wit, and philosophical ideas, but after they become a couple, her mood swings set off unexpected sparks. Tension builds as Cassidy's past comes to light, and a shocking climax culminates in an emotional crash to rival Ezra's physical one. Schneider shows remarkable skill at getting inside her narrator's head as his life swings between disaster and recovery. Ages 13-up. Agent: Merrilee Heifetz, Writers House. (Aug.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Review by School Library Journal Review
Gr 9 Up-Ezra Faulkner believes that everyone has a tragedy waiting to happen that will be their life-changing moment. In the summer before seventh grade, his best friend, Toby, had his moment when he inadvertently caught the severed head of a boy who was decapitated on a ride in Disneyland. Ezra ended his friendship with Toby after that. Now 17, Ezra encounters his own tragic watershed event: he finds his girlfriend cheating on him and then has a car accident that ends his tennis career. He returns to school for his last year a broken boy who has shunned his jock friends and just wants to make it through life unnoticed. By reconnecting with Toby and developing a relationship with Cassidy, a new girl who has a secretive past and home life, Ezra gets the chance to remake himself into someone who lives rather than just exists. Though Ezra's old friends are depicted as stereotypes, they help to emphasize the attributes of his new friends, who are quirky, smart, and funny. This is a wonderfully told story. The dialogue moves the plot along at a fast pace, and Ezra, with all his flaws, is a character to whom readers can relate. Teens won't want to put this one down until the mystery of Cassidy is unraveled at the end.-Elizabeth Kahn, Patrick F. Taylor Science & Technology Academy, Jefferson, LA (c) Copyright 2013. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Review by Horn Book Review
When a car crash ends Ezra's sports career he feels alienated from his popular peers. Adrift, he reconnects with an old friend, joins the debate team, and falls in love with an eccentric girl who keeps him at arm's length. Although Ezra's frequent philosophizing hovers near pretentious, fans of sharp-tongued, well-read teen characters will be very satisfied. (c) Copyright 2014. The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
(c) Copyright The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Review by Kirkus Book Review
Smart writing and a compelling narrator raise this book above ordinary depictions of high school drama. After finding his vapid girlfriend going down on another guy, Ezra Faulkner is seriously injured in a hit-and-run accident, leaving him out of the loop with the jock-and-cheerleader set. When senior year begins, he gravitates toward his old friend Toby, no stranger to tragedy himself. Toby and his debate team welcome Ezra to their lunch table when they find out that the prom king is as smart and funny as they are. Schneider takes familiar stereotypes and infuses them with plenty of depth. Here are teens who could easily trade barbs and double-entendres with the characters that fill John Green's novels. Ezra falls in love with Cassidy, an enigmatic transfer student fascinated by Foucault's notion of society as panopticon, flash mobs and puns. Ezra is forced to confront his complacency about the direction his life has been taking, but it's an uneasy passage. The author takes care with the telling of Ezra's story, allowing time to develop her characters. Narrator Ezra's point of view is an unusual one, that of an introspective athlete reflecting on events from the slight remove of his first year in college. Efficient use of language, evocative descriptions and subtle turns of phrase make reading and rereading this novel a delight. (Fiction. 14 up)]] Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
