Chasing AllieCat

January 10, 2011
Sixteen-year-old Sadie Lester is not looking forward to summer at her Uncle Scout's house in a tiny Minnesota town, where her divorced parents have dumped her while they go on a research trip. Her priorities are finding a job and mountain biking, yet she is forced to babysit and handle an overcrowded house filled with relatives. When she meets Allie aka "AllieCat," an expert cyclist from the wrong side of the tracks who is full of fiery advice ("The only people who aren't chicken are a little stupid. You just gotta ride anyway. Ride through the chicken, you might say"), they team up and train for the Fourth of July race. While riding in the woods, Sadie, Allie, and Joe (Sadie's love interest) find a priest who's been beaten within an inch of his life, and, after sending for help, Allie disappears. Davis (Jake Riley: Irreparably Damaged) constructs a succinct, compelling story that combines romance, suspense, and the theme of overcoming challenges. The strong sense of place, character development, and love triangle dynamics should engage cycling enthusiasts as well as a broader audience. Ages 12–up.

March 1, 2011

Gr 9 Up-Stuck for the summer in small-town Minnesota with her uncle's family while her parents are in Egypt, 16-year-old Sadie gets a job and reluctantly helps out, but her main pleasure is riding her mountain bike with mysterious and elusive Allie, who is a tough competitor and pushes her to go farther, faster, and get stronger. The big race is the Fourth of July with many levels of competition. Allie's in the top bracket and convinces Sadie to give it a whirl. Then her aunt's nephew Joe moves in, supposedly to recover from the death of his twin brother, and a light romance begins to develop along with the intense biking. The three discover a badly beaten priest in the woods as they are riding, and Allie recognizes him and then disappears once she knows help is on the way. Allie has never shared much information about her personal life, but Sadie and Joe don't realize how little they know until she goes into hiding. The bike racing and riding scenes are well written and capture the excitement of the sport, but the mystery at the heart of the story meanders uncertainly, requiring that Allie share details about her paroled father's sexual abuse to bring all the threads together. Other plot elements are unbelievable, and Allie's coming out at the end seems tacked on. While the plot is unsatisfying, the characters are engaging, the romance light, and the small-town atmosphere generally realistic. Save this one for rabid mountain bike racers or those who love vicarious sports thrills and leave it off the mystery list.-Carol A. Edwards, Denver Public Library, CO

Copyright 2011 School Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

January 1, 2011
Dropped at her aunt and uncle's crowded house in LeHillier, Minn., so that her divorced parents can do research together in Egypt on Nefertiti, 16-year-old Sadie's summer starts "with a bang," literally, and veers off into unexpected and even dangerous terrain. Writing from Sadie's point of view, using an authentic adolescent voice with an observant sense of humor, Davis creates an engaging, increasingly gritty (also brutal) bike-centric mystery (and romance). Led by Allie, aka AllieCat, Sadie's elusive new friend, a convict's daughter who is tough and fast, "always land[ing] rubber side down," and joined by Joe, sax-playing, cigarette-smoking and sad, she trains hard for a Fourth of July mountain-bike race (Sadie's first) at Mount Kato, in the scenic Minnesota River Valley. Until... July 1st, the day the kids find Father Malcolm, "his body beaten to a barely breathing, bloody pulp in the woods," and Allie goes into hiding. Despite some weaknesses, including poorly integrated gay content and an occasional tendency toward melodrama, the story is ultimately a celebration of biking and perseverance—a suspenseful ride. (Fiction. 14 & up)

(COPYRIGHT (2011) KIRKUS REVIEWS/NIELSEN BUSINESS MEDIA, INC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.)

January 1, 2011
Grades 8-10 Sadie is crazy about off-road biking. Getting in lots of practice, she figures, is the one good thing about staying with her rural Minnesota relatives for the summer. When she meets a mysterious fellow enthusiast named Allie, as well as Joe, a handsome and equally bike-besotted relative, things seem just about perfect. Then the threesome, on a practice ride for an upcoming contest, finds the badly beaten body of a local priest. Allie immediately disappears, and Sadie and Joe are left to puzzle out the connection between their friend and the crime. The main draw here is less the mystery, though, and more Davis mastery of biking scenes. She makes the grueling sport come alive by knowledgeably describing rough terrain, spills, and the thrill of riding through the chicken. Although the suspensefeaturing mean, run-em-off-the-road rednecks and a recent prison paroleeis thin, scenes of friendship and romance, forged while the protagonists sweat their way toward their sporting goals, will draw in readers who like athletic realism mixed with their action.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2011, American Library Association.)