My RSS Feeds
Playing the Field
 | Playing the Field Phil Bildner Date: February 2006 — $10.37 — Book Rating: |
After three years as the varsity girls’ softball superstar, senior Darcy Miller has only one goal for the upcoming season: to play on the boy’s baseball team. Unfortunately, Principal Basset (who, by the way, is dating her mother) isn’t going along with the deal until his son Brandon, a real dreamboat, decides to help the cause. His solution? Outing Darcy to his father as a lesbian (she’s not). Suddenly life becomes very complicated as she finds herself switching teams in more ways than one. For starters, she’s in love with Brandon and bumping him out of his spot in the starting line-up doesn’t qualify as a romantic gesture. Then there’s her former best friend turned archenemy, Josh, the president of the Gay Straight Alliance, an organization that she’s forced to join. Confusion and conflict rule the day in this absurdly funny examination of a substantive issue. Make no mistake; this is not a thoughtful, sensitive look at teens and sexuality. Nothing is sacred in Bildner’s high school universe. Laced with quirky and off-color phrases and descriptors (yellow as the tiles around a nursery school urinal, nervous as a Christian Scientist with a severed artery, Powerball-out-of-this-world odds) the dialogue crackles on the page, making it well worth the read, even for those who might not appreciate the blunt humor. The characters lack depth and tread dangerously close to becoming stereotypes, but they succeed in fulfilling their assigned roles in an utterly nonsensical scenario. It’s the screwball plot that powers the appeal of this first novel and keeps the reader engaged. After all the posturing and less than role-model type behavior of the lead players subsides, the author does manage to include an array of statistics about teenage homosexuality, AIDS, and harassment, but the heavy handed presentation screams of a public service announcement tacked onto the final credits. Overall it’s a fast-paced, energetic trip down the rabbit hole of high school shenanigans.
Recommended for Grades 9 and up.
