School Library Journal Starred Review

Gr 8-11 Three bright and funny Brookline, MA, eleventh graders look back on their most excellent yearninth gradefor a school report. Told in alternating chapters by each of them, this enchanting, life-affirming coming-of-age story unfolds through instant messages, emails, memos, diary entries, and letters to celebrity divas and to a deceased mom. T.C. (Anthony Conigliaro) Keller, whose mother died when he was six, is in love with baseball and Alejandra (Alé) Perez. She and Augie Hwong, who is gay and in love with Andy Wexler, are passionate about the stage and screen, and Augie and T.C. have been "brothers" since they were six. The teens mount a fabulous talent show, launch a couple of grassrooots political movements, and bring hope and love to a deaf, six-year-old foster child. What's more, Augie and T.C. have a refreshingly positive relationship with their parents. Similar in storytelling style to Kate Klise's classic Regarding the Fountain: A Tale, in Letters, of Liars and Leaks (Avon, 1998), this is a rich and humorous novel for older readers. The teen and adult characters are quirky and charming, and their adventures are involving without being over-the-top. A fun, feel-good story with star quality. Sharon Senser McKellar, Oakland Public Library, CA

ALA Booklist (Sat Mar 01 00:00:00 CST 2008)

In his first novel for young readers, Kluger revisits themes in his adult titles: baseball, romantic sparring, and social activism. Boston teens T. C. and Augie are such close friends that their families acknowledge them as brothers. Alejandra has recently arrived from Washington, D.C., where her father served as a Mexican ambassador to the U.S. Written in multiple voices and nontraditional formats, including instant messages and school assignments, Kluger's crowded, exuberant novel follows the three high-school freshman through an earth-shaking year in which musical-theater-obsessed Augie realizes that he is gay, Alejandra reveals her theatrical talents to disapproving parents, and T. C. tries to make a deaf child's greatest wish come true. At the center are heart-pulling romances (even a few among adults) and a broadening sense of what family means. A few plot twists will require readers to suspend belief, and the voices tend to sound alike. Still, the appealing characters are bright, passionate, and fully engaged in their lives, and many readers will lose themselves in this original, high-spirited story.

Horn Book (Fri Aug 01 00:00:00 CDT 2008)

For an eleventh-grade writing assignment, T.C., Augie, and Ale recount their freshman year shenanigans, friendships, and heartaches. Kluger has a fine touch with characterization (a subplot involving a deaf six-year-old's obsession with Mary Poppins is poignant and believable), and his teenagers have strong, distinct voices. He also has a good ear for dialogue and establishes a definite sense of place.

Kirkus Reviews

How many novels have such a cast of characters: A Red Sox addict who writes letters to his dead mother; his gay American-born Chinese "brother"; a love interest whose role model is Jacqueline Kennedy and who's the daughter of the ambassador to Mexico; a young boy who thinks Mary Poppins is real; and a father romancing his son's school adviser? Kluger's foray into young-adult literature does, and it all works wonderfully in a modern-day tale of baseball, romance, Broadway musicals and even baseball at the Manzanar National Historic Site. Written in letters, instant messages, school assignments and e-mails, this romantic comedy is pure fun. T.C., Augie, Alejandra, Andy and others find that romance means learning to see with new eyes and becoming new under the influence of magic in the world. The many characters are well-drawn and believable, and readers will care about them. The innovative format works well in relating the multiple love stories, and the story ought to appeal to a wide range of readers. (Fiction. 12+)

Publishers Weekly (Fri Oct 06 00:00:00 CDT 2023)

Three teens complete an English assignment detailing their “most excellent year” in this big, warmhearted tale about musical theater, political organizing, baseball, friendship and love. Tony Conigliaro Keller (named like everyone in his family for a Boston Red Sox player) and Augie Hwong have been self-declared brothers since age six, when T.C.'s mother died. Entering high school, everyone but Augie knows that Augie is gay, which finally dawns on him when he falls for another student. Meanwhile, T.C. develops an intense crush on the novel's third essayist, Alé Perez, daughter of a Mexican diplomat now teaching at Harvard. While T.C. and his father share a baseball obsession, Augie and Alé get close when both are cast in <EMPHASIS TYPE=""ITALIC"">Kiss Me, Kate. The essay segments are spliced with diary entries (T.C.'s are addressed to his mother, Alé's to Jacqueline Kennedy); e-mails from and between parents, teachers and Alé's former Secret Service agent; reprints of Augie's mother's hilariously excoriating theater reviews; transcripts of IM sessions. The characters are a little too good to be true, and there's a distracting and improbable subplot about a deaf motherless child obsessed with <EMPHASIS TYPE=""ITALIC"">Mary Poppins. The protagonists sometimes sound more like 40-year-olds than teens; however, the results are unexpectedly positive, opening up the audience to adults as well as the target reader. Ages 12-up. <EMPHASIS TYPE=""ITALIC"">(Mar.)

Voice of Youth Advocates

In this epistolary novel, high school juniors Anthony "T.C." Keller, Augie Hwong, and Alejandra "Ale" Perez revisit-by way of an assignment prompt-the ninth grade year that all three agree qualifies as their "most excellent." At the beginning of ninth grade, Ale, the daughter of a diplomat, moves to T.C. and Augie's suburban Boston neighborhood. T.C. tries to convince her to date him while Augie develops a crush on a male classmate who seems to return his affection. Although Ale resists T.C.'s advances and Augie's flirtation with his crush moves tentatively, the boys have other things to keep them occupied: T.C. is trying to set his father up with his school advisor, and Augie is directing the school musical programs. In addition, the two have befriended a six-year-old deaf boy, whom T.C. especially takes under his wing. Although the story has its merits, the most refreshing of which is its insistence on the good hearts of its characters, Kluger's first young adult novel is heavy on a kind of masculine sentiment and filled with some rather unbelievable plot twists. The narrative voices of the young characters are not fully distinct, and each seems a bit too sophisticated in terms of language and perspective, especially when compared to the occasionally interrupting voices of T.C. and Augie's parents, whose own communications are interspersed throughout. The overly long novel seems to account for all 365 days of that ninth grade year and could have benefited from judicious editing.-Amy S. Pattee.