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A review by library_ann
Mr. 60% by Clete Barrett Smith
4.0
I don't even know how to describe this book. I don't know how this even caught my eye, but here I am.
Matt's life is in tatters, and he is barely keeping it together. He does just enough get by in his high school classes ("D is for diploma", amirite?), and he has to deal drugs on the side to get money for his uncle's cancer medicine. So he's a hood with a heart of gold. And then Amanda, another student, comes into his life. There is no romance, but she wants to be a nurse, and for a while she helps to make Matt's life a little less chaotic. Matt's desperation, and later his grief, make him a complete jerk.
A telling scene is after his uncle's death, he goes to the school guidance counselor, and admits that he wants to finish high school, even after learning that it will require summer school. The counselor remarks that Matt has never said he wanted anything before -- because anything that he could have wanted earlier would have been impossible. Want uncle to get better. Want to have loving parents. He had to get through all this crisis and trauma before he could think of his own future.
Anyway, there's a reconciliation at the end, and a light at the end of the tunnel, and Matt's life might be making a turn for the better, and I was all choked up as I read it.
Matt's life is in tatters, and he is barely keeping it together. He does just enough get by in his high school classes ("D is for diploma", amirite?), and he has to deal drugs on the side to get money for his uncle's cancer medicine. So he's a hood with a heart of gold. And then Amanda, another student, comes into his life. There is no romance, but she wants to be a nurse, and for a while she helps to make Matt's life a little less chaotic. Matt's desperation, and later his grief, make him a complete jerk.
A telling scene is after his uncle's death, he goes to the school guidance counselor, and admits that he wants to finish high school, even after learning that it will require summer school. The counselor remarks that Matt has never said he wanted anything before -- because anything that he could have wanted earlier would have been impossible. Want uncle to get better. Want to have loving parents. He had to get through all this crisis and trauma before he could think of his own future.
Anyway, there's a reconciliation at the end, and a light at the end of the tunnel, and Matt's life might be making a turn for the better, and I was all choked up as I read it.