Reality Check

Reality Check by Peter Abrahams

If you read my last review, you are aware that I don’t like mysteries. Not a bit. Not even. No. In fact, if one of my colleagues wants to share how great the latest mystery they’re reading is… I have a hard time pretending to listen. Shhhhh! Kind of like a sermon that opens with a sports analogy. Alissa has left the building. Hey! I’m not perfect!

But sometimes, I read a book that doesn’t announce that it is a mystery and I get hooked! When I’m all finished, I look back and say, “Hey! You tricked me! Not FAIR!” Technically Black Hearts of Battersea, was a mystery. Apparently, my kind of mystery. And Reality Check is what I would call a mystery thriller. I could see it as a movie for Young Adults that aren’t into vampires and apocalypses. Just need the right celebrities. Say, a Justin Bieber and a Selena Gomez. Add a few catchy tunes sung by the stars and instant success. Why do I know these things?

Reality Check is a 2012 Abraham Lincoln Award Nominee. Now that I’ve read all of the winners from past years, I’m ready to tackle a new year’s. These books are intended for Young Adults, namely high schoolers, but there is some cross-over with junior high on one end of the spectrum as well as some adult fiction on the opposite. In my opinion, this novel is relatively tame. There is some underage drinking and smoking. There is some physical intimacy although never graphic nor detailed. There is a blip of vaguely implied homosexuality. I can comfortably recommend this book to both the boys and the girls. Young men and young women?

Cody Laredo is excited to begin his junior year at his small high school in the small town of Little Bend, Colorado. It’s not that he loves school. No, he hates academics. He’s more than happy to slip by with a D-. But his passion is football and he intends to be the star quarterback. Everyone knows how important your junior year is in regards to the college scouts.

He’s also pretty thrilled that his girlfriend is Clea Weston. She is nothing like him. She is an over-achieving academic dynamo. A “B” has no place on her report card. In fact, a B is cause for alarm where her father is concerned. And her father is an important man. He pretty much owns the town. Clea is not only from the opposite side of the tracks; Clea is as far away from poor Cody’s apartment above the Red Pony as it is possible to be. But that doesn’t seem to bother either of them.

Unfortunately that B on Clea’s report card and her increasing interest in a boy who is simply not good enough for her, leads to her being sent away to boarding school in New England. Cody attempts to protect his heart by breaking up with her, but when Clea disappears from her new school, Cody leaves his life behind him to try to find her.

Obviously, this is the case of no one being exactly what they appear to be. Including Cody. Headed cross country with only Clea’s most recent letter in his hand, Cody joins the search for his ex-girlfriend, but decides not to tell anyone who he is or share the letter. The letter says, “It’s hard to know who to trust sometimes.” Cody is convinced he can help. He is also convinced that revealing himself will only take attention away from the search for Clea. He’s ready to match his deductive powers with that of the local sheriff, but who is smarter and who is quicker?

A quick read, this one. I'd take a big dumb jock with heart anytime. It's hard to watch him, read him? make the choices he does. It's not that he's stupid - which he thinks he is. He just sees things differently than those around him. And he knows the subject, Clea, better than most.