What We’re Reading

Dairy Queen | Catherine Gilbert Murdock

Rating:

I read this book while on vacation in Vermont, which seemed really appropriate, even if the book was set in Wisconsin.

D.J., at 15, doesn’t have the world’s most pleasant life. Her two older brother’s have left the house, after a fight with their dad, and dad’s got a bum leg, so it’s up to D.J. to run the farm. She gets occasional help from her younger brother, but he’s big into sports, which come first. And just when she thinks it can’t get any worse, the rival football team QB shows up in her driveway. He was sent, it turns out, to help. Since he doesn’t want to be there, and D.J. doesn’t want him there, you can imagine how it goes.

When his coach, her dad’s best friend, comes by later, she bluntly explains that she think Brian needs a trainer, not a job. Apparently the coach agrees, and suddenly D.J. finds herself in a situation even more unexpected than she began with. She and Brian both reluctantly agree to give it a shot, and by the end of the week have grown quite comfortable with each other.

In the meantime, D.J. has also thought up another plan. After realizing how much she really does know about football, and how much fun she’s had training with Brian, she wants to play. Since she doesn’t know if it’s even possible, she keeps it to herself.

Her mother, a member of the School Board, finds out first, since the Coach brought it up in a meeting. Awkward, to say the least, but she promises to keep the secret. Brian finds out in an even worse manner, on the first day of practice, and her dad finds out last. All of which spurs D.J. to action, calling her brother Bill for the first time since the big fight.

Underlying all the ball, is a pretty insightful look into families and their dysfunctions and how easy some of them can be to avoid.

If you’re looking for a nice light read with a lot of laughs, this one’s for you.

Find it in the catalog

The Dairy Queen | Catherine Gilbert Murdock by Jaemi, unless otherwise expressly stated, is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.

This entry was posted on Friday, September 14th, 2007 at 11:08 am by Jaemi and is filed under Book Review, Series. Find similar posts by selecting and of the following tags: family problems, farm life, football, high school, realistic, ya fiction. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.