Bound To Stay Bound

Bulletin for the Center... - 06/01/2011 Felton is jarred from his comfortable state of nerdiness when a vicious growth spurt renders him taller, bulkier, hairier, and ridiculously faster on his feet. Suddenly he’s the darling of the football team, heavily recruited by first-stringers who see his speed as key to a winning season. Less gratifying is the effect he has on his own mother, Jerri, who breaks into tears at the very sight of him and is fixated on his resemblance to his father, who committed suicide when his two sons were very young. Normally, Felton would rely on the friendship and counsel of his best friend, Gus, but Gus is temporarily in South America with an ailing relative, and living in his house is a talented young African-American pianist, with whom Felton falls heavily in (mutual) like. It all makes for a turbulent summer, as Jerri checks out emotionally and takes to her bedroom, leaving Felton and his younger brother to fend for themselves until the situation becomes so dire that their distant grandmother must be summoned to the rescue. The family melodrama surrounding Jerri’s instability and revelations about Felton’s father is a tad overplayed, but this is otherwise a convincing riff on adolescent metamorphosis. Herbach is at his peak limning the confusion and frustration of a young man who no longer recognizes his own body, and Felton’s self-deprecating take on his newly awarded A-list status is funny and compelling. EB - Copyright 2011 The Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois.

Booklist - 05/15/2011 Everything changes for Felton Reinstein during his fifteenth year. A growth spurt and the discovery of latent athletic talent tilt how the world views the teen, who thinks of himself as a little slow on the uptake. Hitherto unpopular and the object of jokes, suddenly Felton, who narrates the story in a hyper, slightly astounded voice, is going out for football, taken under the wing of one of his school’s more popular jocks. Meanwhile, a paper route leads him to meet (and become sweet on) a musical prodigy, whose father is a visiting professor at the local college. If all this weren’t enough, things at home are falling apart: Felton’s mom has a breakdown as she tries to face Felton’s maturation and younger brother’s persistent probe of their father’s suicide many years earlier. Suffice it to say, nothing is quite what Felton thinks. In this struggling and often clueless teen, Herbach has created an endearing character coming to terms with his past and present in a small, well-defined Wisconsin town. - Copyright 2011 Booklist.

School Library Journal - 08/01/2011 Gr 9 Up—In his sophomore year, Fenton Reinstein's voice drops, he begins to grow hair all over his body, and he becomes "stupid fast." Previously indifferent to sports, he instantly becomes a star sprinter and is touted as the next savior of the football team before he has ever played a down. All is not entirely well, however. Fenton's only real friend, Gus, has gone to Venezuela with his family for the summer, and he has to take over Gus's paper route, a job he hates. More ominously, the teen's always-quirky mother, Jerri, has retreated into her own world and has left Fenton and his sweet, needy younger brother, Andrew, to basically fend for themselves. Fenton is also haunted by the early-childhood trauma of discovering his father's body after the man committed suicide. When African-American teen piano virtuoso Aleah Jennings and her father move into Gus's house for the summer, things begin to look up for Fenton. After an awkward beginning, the two establish a relationship that has its ups and downs, but helps to sustain Fenton as his mother's mental illness rages out of control. He and his sibling finally find the courage to contact their father's mother, who turns out not to be the shrewish ogre their mother described, but a loving, responsible adult who sees the boys through their crisis. The novel has some loose ends and needless plot contrivances, but in the end Fenton's sarcasm, anxiety, self-doubt, thoughtfulness, and compassion carry the day and perfectly capture the voice of his generation.—Richard Luzer, Fair Haven Union High School, VT - Copyright 2011 Publishers Weekly, Library Journal and/or School Library Journal used with permission.