Jordan Sonnenblick has accomplished something nearly impossible. Sonnenblick has created a novel that guarantees everyone from their teenage years to young adulthood a fun and powerfully written journey through high school student Alex Gregory’s life after he made a mistake that cost him his reputation, respect, and also his driver’s license.

From the very beginning of Sonnenblick’s masterpiece, he ensures that his readers will be thrown on a wild ride when introducing Alex and his plan to get drunk and steal his mom’s car. Sonnenblick then developed his story in Alex’s point of view as to how the situation unfolded, and of Alex’s trek through the repercussions associated with drunk driving, even if all he did was decapitate his neighbor’s lawn gnome.  

Alex’s troubles all start when he is sentenced to one hundred hours of community service with a grumpy old man named Solomon Lewis. At first, all Alex wants to do is finish his community service and get away from Sol, but as the story goes on, the two of them bond over jazz music and become tight friends.

Sonnenblick has also mastered the tricky dialect in which teenagers today speak in, and integrates this into the conversations Alex has with his friends and also in Alex’s thoughts. While on the topic of Alex’s friends, it is necessary to be made known that Sonnenblick has made them so lifelike that they appear to almost walk right out of the pages. Everything about Sonnenblick’s characters make you want to hear more and more about them, and leaves you yearning to hear about the rest of their lives when the book ends. One example is Laurie, Alex’s longstanding best friend. Alex describes Laurie as a “gothic tinker-bell” and also a black belt equipped ninja at the same time. Sonnenblick also placed a small bit of romance and managed to make even readers who usually do not enjoy a romantic touch inwardly hope that Alex gets the girl.

Sonnenblick’s plot development skills are superb, and as readers go through the book, each page has readers sitting on the edge of their seats, frantically flipping to find out what happens next. This is most definitely a book I would recommend to anyone for enjoyable reading and something I myself would read over and over again.