This is the first of two short reviews today. For launch week, you almost get a movie trailer preview of how I write reviews, and this the first negative one. I hope you find it helpful.
The blurb: When Marcus moves to a new town in the dead of summer, he doesn’t know a soul. While practicing football for impending tryouts, he strikes up a friendship with a man named Charlie, the best football player Marcus has ever seen. He can’t believe his good luck when he finds out that Charlie is Charlie Popovich, or “the King of Pop,” as he’d been nicknamed during his career as an NFL linebacker.
Charlie turns out to be a prankster, and his actions get Marcus in trouble. He’s also the father of the quarterback at Marcus’s new school—who leads the team in icing out the new kid.
The story of a good kid’s struggle to land on his feet in a new town after his parents split up combines with compelling sports action and even some romance in Gordon Korman’s Pop.
Shortest review ever: I stopped reading because of sexual tension.
I think I returned it the day or the day after I checked it out, and honestly wish I hadn’t read as far as I did. I love some of Gordan Korman’s books, but for me, this was a flat no.