Play Me Backwards

May 26, 2014
Leon Harris is a quintessential slacker, whiling away his high school years working at a “B-list ice cream parlor” with an unpopular bunch of misfits including his best friend Stan, who tells everyone he’s actually Satan and that “My parents just leave out the first A so I can go to St. Pius.” After Leon comes to the Valentine’s Day rescue of popular Paige Becwar, he ends up falling for her, even as the girl of his dreams, Anna B, might be returning to Iowa after years of living in England. Selzer (I Kissed a Zombie and I Liked It) packs the story with bawdy, hormonal humor and scenes of Leon, Stan, Paige and their friends talking about life and sex, playing invented games to pass the time, or embarking on faux-heroic quests to find a rare “Slushee” flavor, inspired by Ahab’s quest in Moby-Dick. It’s a mordantly funny story of a teenager bumbling headlong into love and sex while caught in high-school limbo, waiting for life to kick into gear. Ages 14–up. Agent: Adrienne Rosado, Nancy Yost Literary Agency.

May 15, 2014
In his final year of high school, Leon must choose between maintaining his comfortable existence or blowing it all up to chase something greater. Leon is on track to do nothing extraordinary with his life. He works at the local ice cream shop alongside his best friend, Stan, and hangs out with the screwballs and weirdos that come in. The gang shuns such bourgeois drudgery as the SATs and college applications in favor of typical teenage tomfoolery, but there's a fine line between a smart, bored kid and a burnout. Leon is the former. When a few moments of chance bring him and popular girl Paige together, Leon begins to shake out of his slacker stupor. This is a particularly smart and sweet teenage love story, refusing to rely on burning passion or overwrought sentiment. There's an emotional maturity in the way Selzer draws Leon and Paige's courtship. It is by far the best part of the book. Less engaging are the peripheral characters, particularly Stan, a kid who believes that he's the devil himself. The character and his influence on the story just don't work, and time spent with him feels wasted when it could be spent elsewhere. Leon's journey to personal responsibility is another topic well-tackled, making this an engaging, character-driven piece with several pros that mightily outweigh the cons. Surprisingly heartfelt. (Fiction. 14-16)

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July 1, 2014

Gr 10 Up-Having Satan for a best friend doesn't mean you get everything you want, but for Leon, it is enough. Leon is content to work a dead-end job at a second-rate ice-cream parlor, get high, think about sex, and make no plans for the future. His buddy Satan is actually Stan, a kid who self-identified as the Prince of Darkness when he was nine and uses his powers to stir up trouble. When Leon hears that his ex-girlfriend, Anna, who he has been dreaming of for years, is returning from London, the idea of living the life of a loser has much less appeal. Inexplicably, Stan assigns Leon to listen to the unabridged audiobook of Moby Dick, which he does by driving around Iowa aimlessly. On one of these excursions, Leon meets Paige, a popular girl, and they begin dating. Stan assigns them to search for a rare Slushee flavor, which gives them something to do together, but these random assignments are often forgotten until the story needs somewhere to go, giving it an unpolished feeling. Selzer is full of outstanding similies and hilarity and his teen boy characters are crude and disgusting, but also extremely vulnerable. A main theme in Leon's life is his performance anxiety. A couple of bad sexual experiences have left him feeling inadequate and petrified, but his relationship with Paige provides the opportunity for them both to discover the fun in relationships and sex. By the end of the book, they have broken up, Leon has grown up a little, and when Anna returns, he is ready to meet her again. Leon is a likable narrator full of real-world worries and flaws, but the storytelling can be stilted and the point, at times, hard to find.-Heather Acerro, Rochester Public Library, MN

Copyright 2014 School Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

August 1, 2014
Grades 10-1 When Leon realizes that his life peaked in middle school, he turns to a logical source of help, best friend and fellow teen Stan (Satan, to his minions), whose advice includes oddly specific assignments: listening to the audiobook of Moby-Dick, seeking the Holy Grail of slushee flavors, and saying yes way too often for comfort. Along the way, Stan tells Leon of a dire-sounding prophecy and recounts his difficulty ruling the un-air-conditioned side of the afterlife, as the two rule their own version of heaven on earth at the Ice Cave, which might be the worst ice-cream joint in the universe. Characterization is chief among Selzer's achievements here; Leon and Stan's erstwhile slacker, stoner, and outcast associates are timelessly true to life. Leon's misadventures and accidental discoveries will keep readers flipping pages to see each successive struggle he will face. A diabolically funny, slacker-makes-good coming-of-age story in the tradition of Rob Thomas' Rats Saw God (1996).(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2014, American Library Association.)