A Short History of the Girl Next Door

July 3, 2017
Reck debuts with a moving story about a sensitive and talented basketball player. High school freshman Matt Wainwright has been in love with his neighbor and longtime friend Tabby for years, but he can’t work up the guts to tell her, especially now that she has caught the eye of the most popular senior on his basketball team. Through Matt’s funny and reflective narration, the story builds to become a powerful novel about first love, the intimacy of childhood friendships, and moving forward from loss, after unexpected tragedy strikes. In the same way that Matt tamps down his feelings for Tabby, Reck writes subtly about Matt’s surging emotions, keeping them just below the surface but strongly felt (during a car ride together, “We don’t talk. A few times I see her typing in her phone, and I wonder how she can share two different experiences at the same time with such ease”). Reck’s novel is sure to provoke reflection about finding meaning amid life’s unforeseeable tragedies. Ages 12–up. Agent: Laura Crocket, Triada U.S. Literary.

June 15, 2017
A young man loses the love of his life. Matt Wainwright has pined for his best friend, Tabby Laughlin, for years but has never struck up the nerve to tell her how he feels. Instead he seethes with jealousy when Tabby begins to date the big man on campus, Liam Branson. There's friction between the two best friends for a bit, but just when things are starting to look up, tragedy strikes. The novel is startlingly similar to John Green's Looking for Alaska, with lost loves, car crashes, and wise teachers. Even more startling is the novels' mirrored structures: both take place over a school year and end with an essay written by the young man for a class taught by an inspiring teacher. The cherry on top of this comparable sundae is the fact that both books feature paragraphs in which the protagonist contemplates how long an instant death feels. Reck's debut is competently written, but the ruminations don't run as deep as Green's. The tertiary characters don't sparkle, spouting serviceable but unremarkable dialogue, and there's little attempt to introduce diversity to the largely white cast. In the end, readers will have the feeling they've read this story before, and it was much better the first time around. (Fiction. 12-16)

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July 1, 2017

Gr 9 Up-Awkward high school freshman Matt Wainwright has two goals in life. He wants to join the varsity basketball team as a sophomore (he's already on JV) and get the girl: his longtime next-door neighbor and best friend Tabby. Unfortunately, Matt's life refuses to follow the script, with his inner monologue personified as an incompetent movie director who causes him to choke under pressure. This results in error after error during Matt's JV games and prevents him from telling Tabby how he really feels. It's not just here that his life-as-a-movie veers away from a picture-perfect script: a school tragedy leaves Matt reeling as he risks losing everything important to him. While this title doesn't pack the same emotional punch as a John Green novel, or contain Green's artistic turn of phrase, it is heartrending in its emotional authenticity, and its portrayal of loss and heartbreak in the second half is particularly poignant. In exploring Matt's grief-induced selfishness, self-pity, and occasional outright cruelty, Reck takes the story to sarcastic and bitingly dark places without plunging into the abyss. Matt's warm relationship with his grandfather and the surprisingly in-depth descriptions of basketball further enhance the book. Although the ending hits an anticlimactic note, it offers readers reason to believe that Matt will rebound. VERDICT The informal writing style, short chapters, and connections to basketball will help this tragi-romance find appeal with reluctant readers. A strong purchase for YA collections.-Alea Perez, Westmont Public Library, IL

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