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By Chris Crutcher
When Bo loses his temper he gets kicked off the Football team and is told if he doesn't do the before school Anger Management class he'll be expelled from High School.
So instead of football, he decides to train for a triathalon (hence the title, "Ironman.") As far as the Anger Management class, he expects the other kids to be losers, future freeway sniper types, but that's where he meets Shelley, a future American Gladiator, who becomes his girlfriend.
The adults in Bo's life include his father who seems to bent on breaking his son's dreams, the Japanese Cowboy Anger Management teacher, a swimming coach, and Larry King - the talk show personality, to whom Bo writes a series of unmailed letters.
In the course of the novel, Bo has to deal with love, divorce, child abuse, mastering his anger, and (here's the Queer part) finding out someone he cares about is gay.
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4 comments:
Another book that looks just great, Lee! I'm going to have to make a place in my queue for this one. Thanks!
I read this book many years ago and passed it on to a student who was dealing with several of the issues the main confronts. At his HS graduation four years later, this student reminded me of the book and told me he was absolutely convinced that reading it had saved his life. Crutcher writes REAL!
This is my favorite Crutcher book, the one that made me a real fan of his. The anger of the MC is palpable, and real, and the book made me feel less alone in the world.
After not reading a book in 3 years. I had to read this for my English class, and as much as I hate to say this, I really liked it.
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