I'm With Stupid

April 1, 2013
A football star copes with his father's suicide. On the outside, high school senior Felton Reinstein has it all: He's good looking and has a great girlfriend and the respect of his peers. Colleges and universities call him every day to entice him into accepting their scholarships. However, when the trauma he experienced as a child--discovering his father's body hanging in the garage--begins to eat at him, Felton's hold on his psyche begins to spiral out of control. Soon, he's unable to control his actions, the words that come out of his mouth or his anger. Herbach's narrative starts off shaky, with some uneven depictions of high school culture seeing football-star and possible homecoming king Felton being picked on. He soon hits his stride, however, and the plot takes off as Felton's anxieties begin to overtake him. Bad decisions, booze and bullying become the name of his game. Herbach soon after throws in a heavy-handed reference to Shakespeare, which unfortunately overshadows much of the story he's already successfully been building. Still, invested readers will want to push through the Hamlet gridlock to see how Felton and his friends make out in the end. A memorable character from an author worth watching. (Fiction. 14 & up)

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October 1, 2013

Gr 9 Up-In this sequel to Stupid Fast (2011) and Nothing Special (2012, both Sourcebooks), Felton Reinstein is still enjoying his high school football fame and is being heavily recruited by college programs nationwide. Life should be good, but the teen is struggling with the memory of his dad's suicide, his mom's emotional absence, his long-distance relationship with his girlfriend, and the pressure of making a college choice essentially on his own. Rather than talking about his problems, Felton internalizes them, causing him to feel even more stress. He attempts to redeem himself in his own eyes by becoming a protector to the bullied, specifically to Tommy, a freshman who has nearly as many problems as Felton. When Felton's college choice becomes a public spectacle that also makes him possibly the most hated guy in town, he begins drinking, risking his status as a school athlete and taking himself even further down the road to being just like his dad. Felton is a typical teen in many ways. Yes, he's a rising sports superstar, but he struggles with friendships, family relationships, and his own identity. He makes mistakes, some of them rather spectacular, but really wants to do the right thing. The focus here is less on sports and more on facing demons and being true to oneself.-Heather Webb, Worthington Libraries, OH

Copyright 2013 School Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

June 1, 2013
Grades 7-10 Felton Reinstein's world has seemed to spiral out of control before (Stupid Fast, 2011; Nothing Special, 2012), but not quite as spectacularly as in this look at the Wisconsin football phenom's high school years. The pressure is truly on as Felton, a senior, has to cope with the stresses of college recruitment. When his girlfriend, Aleah, breaks off their long-distance romance, and the brother of the bullied freshman he mentors kills himself, Felton violently unravels. Identifying with Shakespeare's Hamlet, Felton struggles with his own royal role as sports hero and his father's legacy as angry suicide. Friends alternately help and hurt him, his mother remains clueless, and a drinking spree puts him in danger of not only getting suspended from sports but also becoming more like his father than he knows. Herbach's character will continue to resonate with readers. The scenes of college coaches wooing Felton are spectacularly drawn, and his ultimate decisions about his mortal coil are anything but facile. Will Herbach follow his hero to Stanford? We can hope.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2013, American Library Association.)