dlberglund's review
5.0
I loved this book. I haven't read Chris Crutcher in a few years, and now I ask myself WHY NOT??? A male student recommended this book to me. The day after I checked it out, a female student saw it on my desk and demanded to know who was reading it so they could talk about it. SO, double thumbs up from the young adult audience.
Our main character is a high school distance runner, short and thin for his age. Immediately before his senior year, he received news from his doctor that he has a rare and not very treatable form of cancer. He chooses not to tell anyone (including his parents), to refuse treatment, and instead to live his senior year to the absolute fullest. So begins his journey.
There are certainly imperfections in the story, but the overall arc is fascinating and mostly believable. CC creates multifaceted characters, warts and all. I love them all.
Our main character is a high school distance runner, short and thin for his age. Immediately before his senior year, he received news from his doctor that he has a rare and not very treatable form of cancer. He chooses not to tell anyone (including his parents), to refuse treatment, and instead to live his senior year to the absolute fullest. So begins his journey.
There are certainly imperfections in the story, but the overall arc is fascinating and mostly believable. CC creates multifaceted characters, warts and all. I love them all.
sacajaguido's review
3.0
I normally don’t read many young adult books about sports so I was hesitant when picking this book up, but because this wasn’t simply a sports book I felt like it would balance out in the end. This book is about a high school senior Ben Wolf who finds out that he is terminally ill during the summer before school starts. The doctors give him a year to live. Ben decides against treatment because he wants to live his last year to its fullest and that means not suffering from extreme chemotherapy. He also makes the decision to not tell ANYONE about his condition. His reasoning is that in order to live this last year completely he can’t have people treating him like he’s fragile. He begins the school year with a modest list of things he needs to get done before death: join the football team, get the girl of his dreams, challenge the education system, and rename a street in his town Malcolm X Avenue. He is determined to go out with a bang. The main protagonist in this story has a strong and humorous voice and the ways in which he goes through the grief process is interesting and makes this book slightly different than others like it, but this strength alone couldn’t save the book. The main problem is that the author tried to tackle too many difficult topics. The book covers: physical abuse, sexual abuse from both the victims and the perpetrators POV, racism, problems with the education system, grief, death, and bipolar disorder. This is a hefty list for one book and the result was that none of the topics got the attention that they needed. Also, another problem I had with the book was a technical problem with how Ben’s sickness is represented. For almost half of the book Ben appears to be fine and show no symptoms of the terminal blood disease that he is dying of and the only time you really see the sickness is at the very end of the book. His health is put down to vague references to vitamin supplements, but I found this farfetched. BUT, even with these problems I think that I could recommend this book to male readers from grade 8 and up that enjoy sports fiction because the book does have very detailed descriptions of the football games that Ben participates in throughout the book. Boys that enjoy sports fiction might pick this book up because of this, but keep reading because of the deeper plot points that develop throughout the book.
jjrae's review
3.0
Ben Wolf discovers he has a terminally ill disease and has less than a year to live. So does he walk into treatment with head held high? Nope. The sneaky guy decides not to tell anyone. Instead, he decides to do everything he's ever wanted to do--join the football team, hook up with Dallas Susuzki . . . That's about it. He does end up trying to help the town drunk and trying to get a street named after Malcolm X.
Oh, don't forget Hey-Soos--the mysterious man who appears in his dreams to converse about love, goals, and death. Where did he come from?
Not sure.
I can't say why I didn't like this book much. Maybe I just couldn't relate. I did like all the sassing going on in the classroom. It was fun to watch Ben's teacher get frustrated and it made me want to check out Lies My Teacher Told Me.
Oh, don't forget Hey-Soos--the mysterious man who appears in his dreams to converse about love, goals, and death. Where did he come from?
Not sure.
I can't say why I didn't like this book much. Maybe I just couldn't relate. I did like all the sassing going on in the classroom. It was fun to watch Ben's teacher get frustrated and it made me want to check out Lies My Teacher Told Me.
carstensena's review
4.0
Read this one for a student bookgroup meeting. We all agreed that it grew on us. The end is a real tearjerker!
bookhawk's review
4.0
Deadline is an entertaining and thoughtful story about life and death as told by a high school senior determined to make his last year meaningful. The main character is a likeable young man with a quick wit, a big empathetic heart and many deep thoughts cloaked in that wit. Recommended reading for young and old. Good story and a quick read. This is a book I never would have discovered but for seeing it in a Goodreads friend update.
anneenichole's review
4.0
If it weren't for the language and the slow time I had with the beginning (because of the football) this would be five stars. The story was fan.tas.tic. Super good, as I'd hoped with the promising summary. Every piece of the story fits so perfectly and the charcter's lives are intertwined just as you'd expect them to be. Even though it was kinda hard to follow, all the Malcom X stuff was pretty interesting (and his arguments are fantastic and filled with big words which is a bonus accounted for). I love how everything turned out and I love Cody. And I now kind of ship him and Dallas. Okay? Okay. (That was just me setting the ship sail, not making a reference to another cancer book :p)
melissapalmer404's review against another edition
5.0
Book #100 Read in 2017
Deadline by Chris Crutcher
This is actually a re-read for me; I read it years ago when it first came out. It will be our next class read in my Young Adult Literature class. Ben, a senior, finds out that he has an aggressive terminal illness. He decides to forgo treatment in order to have a "normal" senior year. He also decides to keep news of illness to himself. This proves problematic as he develops new friendships and he realizes he has to let his friends and family know. While the topic is heavy, this book is filled with a humor, and a philosophy on life, that will appeal to high school and adult readers alike.
Deadline by Chris Crutcher
This is actually a re-read for me; I read it years ago when it first came out. It will be our next class read in my Young Adult Literature class. Ben, a senior, finds out that he has an aggressive terminal illness. He decides to forgo treatment in order to have a "normal" senior year. He also decides to keep news of illness to himself. This proves problematic as he develops new friendships and he realizes he has to let his friends and family know. While the topic is heavy, this book is filled with a humor, and a philosophy on life, that will appeal to high school and adult readers alike.
froydis's review
4.0
I quite enjoyed this! Its a sad story, and somewhat unrealistic, but there is a lot of food for thought here. I very much liked the main character - "little Wolf" - and got quite teary at the end. And interesting premise well executed! Maybe not a book for everyone, but one to give a try.