Shift

Bradbury, Jennifer. 2008. Shift.

It's yellow. There's a bicycle. The cover alone could never persuade me to pick this one up. Yet, I'm glad I did. Really glad. I enjoyed this one a great deal. I like the way this one is told. I like the story. I like the characters. I like satisfying nature of it all. She made me care. The story isn't traditionally told--it's revealed in bits and pieces. We'd have one chapter set in the present, the next chapter set in the past, etc. (This framework is a trend I'm seeing quite a bit of in my Cybils reading.) It's a good coming-of-age story, a realization that change is the only constant in life. The friend you thought you knew, the friend you grew up side by side with isn't necessarily going to keep on the same path that you are. Life changes. Friends change. Families change. You change. You grow. You can grow closer to someone, or you can grow apart. There's no real predicting which will happen. But change can be a good thing--a very good thing in some cases. And it's necessary to living life. Our narrator, Chris, took a bike ride across the country with his best friend, Win, but only one of them returned back home. The other has gone missing. It's the how and why and where of it all that keeps the pages turning...This is the story of both boys--recent high school grads at the beginning of their new lives.

© Becky Laney of Becky's Book Reviews