The Beginning of Everything

Starred review from July 8, 2013
Schneider (Better Than Yesterday) offers an engrossing romance in which tragedy brings two teens together, then threatens to tear them apart. Ezra Faulkner has a bright future as a tennis player until a car accident leaves him with a serious knee injury. Along with losing his spot on the team and his prospects of being recruited by colleges, he is dropped by his popular clique (“I had been Ezra Faulkner, golden boy, but that person no longer existed”). At the onset of senior year, he makes major changes, rekindling a childhood friendship he’d dropped after a gruesome mishap, joining the debate team, and getting to know Cassidy Thorpe, an the enigmatic new student with a reputation as a stellar debater. Ezra is mesmerized by Cassidy’s intelligence, wit, and philosophical ideas, but after they become a couple, her mood swings set off unexpected sparks. Tension builds as Cassidy’s past comes to light, and a shocking climax culminates in an emotional crash to rival Ezra’s physical one. Schneider shows remarkable skill at getting inside her narrator’s head as his life swings between disaster and recovery. Ages 13–up. Agent: Merrilee Heifetz, Writers House.

July 1, 2013

Gr 9 Up-Ezra Faulkner believes that everyone has a tragedy waiting to happen that will be their life-changing moment. In the summer before seventh grade, his best friend, Toby, had his moment when he inadvertently caught the severed head of a boy who was decapitated on a ride in Disneyland. Ezra ended his friendship with Toby after that. Now 17, Ezra encounters his own tragic watershed event: he finds his girlfriend cheating on him and then has a car accident that ends his tennis career. He returns to school for his last year a broken boy who has shunned his jock friends and just wants to make it through life unnoticed. By reconnecting with Toby and developing a relationship with Cassidy, a new girl who has a secretive past and home life, Ezra gets the chance to remake himself into someone who lives rather than just exists. Though Ezra's old friends are depicted as stereotypes, they help to emphasize the attributes of his new friends, who are quirky, smart, and funny. This is a wonderfully told story. The dialogue moves the plot along at a fast pace, and Ezra, with all his flaws, is a character to whom readers can relate. Teens won't want to put this one down until the mystery of Cassidy is unraveled at the end.-Elizabeth Kahn, Patrick F. Taylor Science & Technology Academy, Jefferson, LA

Copyright 2013 School Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

Starred review from July 1, 2013
Grades 8-11 *Starred Review* The way Ezra Faulkner sees it, everyone gets one great tragedy, after which life should roll on predictably. His middle-school best friend, Toby, gets his when a roller-coaster accident brands him a social misfit, and Ezra gets his a week before junior prom, when he, the tennis star and class president shoo-in, is injured by a distracted driver. When senior year begins, Ezra and his destroyed leg slide easily into a new social circle, eschewing the surface attempts of former friends to stay connected and instead joining Toby on the debate team. That's where he meets Cassidy, a beguiling transfer student who helps Ezra discover his new self. To Ezra, it's an idyllic relationship, so when it collapses, his worldview collapses, toohadn't he just recovered from his one great tragedy? Throughout, Ezra reads The Great Gatsby and alludes to parallels found in the classic novel. His story of self-discovery and reinvention is told in past tense, providing just enough distance for bits of reflection and subtle foreshadowing, which serve to enrich characters and build suspense. This thought-provoking novel about smart kids doing interesting things will resonate with the John Green contingent, as it is tinged with sadness, high jinks, wry humor, and philosophical pondering in equal measures.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2013, American Library Association.)

January 1, 2014
When a car crash ends Ezra's sports career he feels alienated from his popular peers. Adrift, he reconnects with an old friend, joins the debate team, and falls in love with an eccentric girl who keeps him at arm's length. Although Ezra's frequent philosophizing hovers near pretentious, fans of sharp-tongued, well-read teen characters will be very satisfied.

(Copyright 2014 by The Horn Book, Incorporated, Boston. All rights reserved.)

May 15, 2013
Smart writing and a compelling narrator raise this book above ordinary depictions of high school drama. After finding his vapid girlfriend going down on another guy, Ezra Faulkner is seriously injured in a hit-and-run accident, leaving him out of the loop with the jock-and-cheerleader set. When senior year begins, he gravitates toward his old friend Toby, no stranger to tragedy himself. Toby and his debate team welcome Ezra to their lunch table when they find out that the prom king is as smart and funny as they are. Schneider takes familiar stereotypes and infuses them with plenty of depth. Here are teens who could easily trade barbs and double-entendres with the characters that fill John Green's novels. Ezra falls in love with Cassidy, an enigmatic transfer student fascinated by Foucault's notion of society as panopticon, flash mobs and puns. Ezra is forced to confront his complacency about the direction his life has been taking, but it's an uneasy passage. The author takes care with the telling of Ezra's story, allowing time to develop her characters. Narrator Ezra's point of view is an unusual one, that of an introspective athlete reflecting on events from the slight remove of his first year in college. Efficient use of language, evocative descriptions and subtle turns of phrase make reading and rereading this novel a delight. (Fiction. 14 & up)

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