Review: The Comeback Season

Title: The Comeback Season
Author: Jennifer E. Smith
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Date published: 2008
Type of book: Young Adult (death, love, baseball, mixed families, illness)
Pages: 246
I received this book from/at: Amazon.com
My interest in this book is: plot

Ideas expressed/message/plot: From book jacket: “The last place Ryan Walsh should be this afternoon is on a train heading to Wrigley Field. She should be in class, enduring yet another miserable day of her first year of high school. But for once, Ryan isn’t thinking about what she should be doing. She’s not worried about her lack of friends, or her suffering math grade, or how it’s been five whole years since the last time she was really and truly happy. Because she’s finally returning to the place that her father loved, where the two of them spent so many afternoons cheering on their team. And on this – the fifth anniversary of his death – it feels like there’s nowhere else in the world she should be.
Ryan is once again filled with hope as she makes her way to the game. Good luck is often hard to come by in place like Wrigley Field, but it’s on this day she meets Nick, the new kid from her school, who seems to love the Cubs nearly as much as she does. But Nick carries with him a secret that makes Ryan wonder if anyone can really escape their past, or believe in the promise of those reassuring words: “Wait till next year.” Is it too much for Ryan to hope that this year, this season, might be her comeback season?”

Favorite characters, quotes/lines: Ryan: I thought her actions were believable for someone who had lost their father, it was inspiring to see her transformation; Nick: he was an amazing character, such a full character (it makes me tear up jus to write about him)

When I finished this book I felt: It wasn’t at all what I expected, but it was amazing. It was a little bit romantic, a little bit angsty, a little bit heartbreaking, and a lot of awesomeness. It was an amazing breakout novel from Smith and I felt like she ended it on just the right note, but I wish that it could have gone on. And the ending wouldn’t have happened.

Other books to read by this author: This is Smith’s first book.

I would recommend this book to: Young Adult fans, with a passion for baseball and life lessons