This book got as much play in the kidlitosphere than RPatz naked at ComicCon would boast.

Okay, maybe that’s an exaggeration. Not by much, though.

I heard about this book over and over and over and over and over and over—the picture is acquired, I trust. There were times when I would see reviews of this book cross my feed reader up to three times a day. I was bitter about missing out on this piece of awesome literature featuring cows and cow piles and crossing of the social tracks and a girl deciding she was just as awesome as the boys.

Then the copy I saw at my library got lost. For a year. It’s actually still lost and the sequel is there but every time I ask they say, “I’m sure we have it…” No! You don’t. It’s lost. Deal with it and order a new copy because it makes the sequel worthless to me. LIBRARY. YOU ARE USUALLY SO AWESOME.

I’d like to talk about the original cover of the book. This is the cover I saw on the copy my library owned:

After reading the story I went back and stared at this cover for awhile and all I can figure out is that whoever was in charge of this cover didn’t read the book, forgot about it in favor of jello shots at the bar downtown with friends, remembered at 3am as they stumbled out of the taxi that took them home, cursed about it as they stumbled into a new taxi and went back to work drunk off their ass, sat down at the computer, googled “cows” and “girls”, slapped this horrendous piece of crap together in Photoshop with some filters and called it done. Whew! Cut it close that time!

I bet they told themselves it was gosh darn pretty, too, right before they passed out on their desk from too many rum and cokes, only to be discovered at 8am the next morning drooling on the copy of the manuscript they were supposed to read and didn’t.

Perhaps I’m being overly harsh, but damn. Phoning it in doesn’t begin to cover it. I have to create elaborate stories and reasons for why this cover sucks balls because I can’t begin to imagine a reality in which anyone who had read this book could think this cover represented this book honestly. I’m tempted to drag out my fail boat icon over this. Almost.

The book didn’t live up the hype for me story-wise. It wasn’t bad, it wasn’t OMG COWS WISCONSIN FOOTBALL THIS IS SO GREAT I MIGHT EXPLODE awesome, the second coming of whatever book where a girl tackles (har har) predominantly male spaces and comes out on top. It’s a quiet story with a quiet narrator who changes (because of a boy but don’t get me started) and becomes all she can be. It’s slice-of-life, which is nice for a quick read where you don’t want to run mental wind sprints.

I liked it! I just finished confused about what was so great so many people were gushing so many adjectives in its general direction. This is why I assume everything is crap. No expectations allowed.

My biggest gripe: I found the parents in this refreshing but also totally useless. They were refreshing as characters assuming the opposite gender role—an interesting parallel to DJ’s story—but much of the time as people (adults! are these not ADULTS) I wanted to ram their heads into a wall and tell them to grow up and stop acting like they had a combined age of 12 between them. I wasn’t very impressed overall with many of the adults and I’m not sure I am not being influenced by being raised in the country with adults just as hard-headed and d-baggy as the father in this story. At least he redeems himself by the end. Sort of.

Tangent: Of course, in a family of jocks the mom gets to be fat. Sure! Totally true to life! The whole thread rubbed me the wrong way. I am not rational about this. I found DJ’s response to her mother’s new found goal offensive. Her mother wants to get into shape and be healthy, all D.J. can think about is wow, at least she has time to lose weight now instead of working two jobs. I debated with myself over whether D.J. was commenting on the classism inherent in poor people not having time to work out and be in shape and decided she might be, after all, she comments on it in other spaces, too, but boy she chose phrasing that rubbed me the wrong way. As if losing weight has anything and everything to do with overall health! sd;flksd;fffssdkslkdf

I don’t want to get too bogged down in that point, though, because I do believe D.J.’s thoughts throughout the book about her school and home situation, how her father can’t really work and mother has to shoulder so much financial responsibility focus on a theme where sometimes people who are poor don’t have the same chances as people who don’t have to worry about it. The book’s premise, D.J. writing it all down as a way to make up all her missed work in English, underline the issue for me. Poor people have to work twice as hard as middle-class folks just to get by and when there are tough times, those times are hellish and hard to come through. I can’t remember where I saw this, but on a few blogs a few months ago I read commentary about how YA is littered with plenty of characters who are middling to upper class and don’t worry about these things and how there wasn’t enough books like this, with D.J.’s from around the country worrying about the same things. I can’t remember the last YA title I read where the narrator worries about their home being sold off, piece by piece. I can’t remember a story in which the narrator counted on a sports scholarship to get a higher education. I can’t say with confidence I’ve read any (let’s hope I have and my memory just sucks, otherwise I’ll mourn this fact all night).

I wanted D.J. and Brian to wise up, find a secluded area and make out for hours, even as it hints that, oh hey, Brian is kind of a jerk. Talk about being conflicted. It was either: KISS HIM or PUNCH HIM IN HIS FACE or worse, both at the same time. They played off one another well; Brian, with his aversion to embarrassment, D.J.’s ability not be ashamed by living how she wants, and their twin desires to be successful. Want some character growth and change and also some enraging abusive boyfriend behavior? This story sprouts it like demented dandelions. The back cover might as well say “I HATE YOU BITCH *SNUB* OH BABY I DIDN’T MEAN IT I LOVE YOU”.

Also, like I said, the father redeems himself…eventually.

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