Cruise Control

Less than a year ago I read Terry Trueman's Stuck in Neutral (see December 17)...The story is
about Shawn McDaniel a 14 year-old boy with Cerebral Palsy which limits him from any voluntary movement and the whole thing is told from Shawn's point of view.

Yesterday I just completed Cruise Control, a companion book to Stuck in Neutral. In this book, Paul McDaniel, Shawn's older brother, tell his side of the story. Paul is a hard and bitter young man who is especially angry at his father for abandoning the McDaniel family. Throughout the book, Paul deals with his anger via sports, fighting, and alcohol...primarily through sports. Paul has a change of heart near the end of the book, but readers will have to see what happens.

Overall, I enjoyed this book a lot. I thought that Trueman did a fantastic job of showing Paul's anger throughout the book. However, I had one big problem with the ending. As a high school coach for many years and someone who has been around sports his whole life, I found the state title basketball game much too unbelievable. Persoanlly the ending turned me off.

Rating: (due to the ending)

Happy reading,
Dr. Quinn