Hit Count

My nephew read this book in a day or two and loved it. He loves football and enjoyed this book.

ty

Well- written

It is a gift for my grandson.

I received an ARC of this book in exchange for an honest review. Hit Count is a book that I think a lot of my high school guy readers (and reluctant readers) are going to enjoy. There is a lot of actual football game time and training time in this book. I read it in an afternoon, so the 300+ pages are easy pages. This book follows Arlo throughout his high school football career and it was pretty interesting to see the evolution. Arlo is a pretty smart guy, but the high he gets from the game robs him of a lot of his judgement. Subplots about Arlo's clearly disturbed older brother (he was freaky ominous) and friendship in the face of ego gave depth to the story. I particularly liked Arlo's relationship with his girlfriend. It seemed like a genuine affection, and it wasn't all about what she could do for him. I don't know if I've seen a relationship like this before from a guy's perspective, and while it is just a small part of the book, it was engaging and a positive example of love. While there is a clear lesson about the danger involved in contact sports and head injuries, it isn't pedantic. I think the approach means my students will be drawn in by the action, but they will hang around long enough to benefit from the themes. While I thought this was a surprisingly strong book for the genre, I did have a few problems. I didn't like the ending, though it was satisfactory enough. I also struggled with the humor, which was sometimes laced with enough malice that I wasn't sure it was humor. My husband, the football coach, feels that some of the drama of the team dynamic was exaggerated, but hey, there is no fight club, right? Overall, I'm going to be very excited to add this to my classroom library because all of my Dueker and Green are well worn, and I struggle to find sports books for guys who read most of them in middle school. Language and situations are appropriate for grades 9+.

This book is about a young high school athlete named Arlo. Arlo is a football stud with unlimited potential to do big things with his skills. His older brother was once a football stud as well until he dropped out of high school and lost everything he had. Arlo strives to be better than his older brother. This is great however Arlo is not very good at being normal and hanging out with people because of his strive for athletic greatness, to him sports and working out come first over school and friends. His first two years in high school were a walk in the park but his junior year he was getting hit a lot harder and getting lot of head to head hits. Halfway through Junior year his coach made Arlo hang up the cleats due to head trauma injuries. Arlo was forced to find out sports to play, he tries lacrosse, kicking boxing. This book shows the great thrill of football but the serious head injury that can be involved with football. I really enjoyed the book because it shows a high school players struggles through high school and how football can really make an impact in your like either good or bad. Also it shows that you never know when bad things can happen, Arlo was having a great time playing football and suddenly he was being forced to hang up his cleats and rethink about the sport he loves.

Bought for my grandson overseas and he enjoyed the book so much as he is an avid football fan and passed it on to his Dad who also enjoyed the read.