School Library Journal (Fri May 01 00:00:00 CDT 2009)

Gr 9 Up-Set in Little Bend, CO, and North Dover, VT, Abrahams's novel follows Cody, 16, who sustains a serious knee injury that leaves him on the bench during the most important recruiting year in his high school career. With no college scholarship in sight, he drops out of school. When his rich girlfriend, Clea, is reported missing from her Vermont boarding school, he drives East to find her and endangers himself in the process. Though not as complicated as Abrahams's adult novels, Reality Check is a solid mystery reminiscent of Carol Plum-Ucci's The Body of Christopher Creed (Harcourt, 2000) or Nancy Werlin's The Killer's Cousin (Delacorte, 1998). That Cody is a country boy and a dropout both complicate and inform his detective persona; the realization that "with the exception of football" he was wasting his time in school sends him "some message about a whole different way for him to look at things, to live." It is this "whole different way" that allows Codya fish out of water among wealthy Dover Academy studentsto solve the mystery, though not before a red herring is revealed and a surprise villain is unmasked. Amy S. Pattee, Simmons College, Boston

Horn Book (Sat Aug 01 00:00:00 CDT 2009)

His promising football career kaput after a knee injury, sixteen-year-old Cody drops out of high school. After learning of ex-girlfriend Clea's disappearance from her elite Vermont boarding school, Cody sets off to investigate. Danger looms as he interacts with locals and rich boarding-school kids and uncovers secrets. Abrahams has crafted a suspenseful mystery with well-drawn characters.

Kirkus Reviews

After his adored ex-girlfriend Clea disappears from her ritzy Vermont boarding school, Cody—a working-class boy who, after a devastating knee injury, went from high-school football star to high-school dropout—travels to Vermont to find her, and becomes embroiled in a dangerous mystery. Cody may be from the wrong side of the tracks and have limited scholastic ability, but he possesses love, loyalty and his own kind of dogged smarts. The setup feels unnecessarily protracted, but once Cody arrives in Vermont, the thriller/mystery angle kicks in and the material becomes much more absorbing. After a series of nicely plotted twists and subterfuges, Cody ends up working at the Dover Academy, where he meets Clea's classmates, some of the school's staff and various locals, who may or may not have had a role in her disappearance. The climax is unexpected and not enormously credible, but it doesn't matter, because by that point readers will be frantically turning pages and fully invested in Abrahams's message of true love conquering all obstacles. (Mystery. 12 & up)

Voice of Youth Advocates

After his brainy girlfriend is shipped off to boarding school and an ACL injury ends his football season, Cody cannot figure out any reason to complete his junior year of high school in rural Colorado. He drops out and takes a lumber yard job until news reaches him that Clea, his girlfriend, has disappeared from her Vermont school. No one is interested in CodyÆs theories, so he sets out on his own for Vermont. Slowly Cody gains the trust of CleaÆs friends, the local police, and a special agent working for the state, but not everyone involved turns out to be interested in resolving the case. Abrahams expertly builds the suspense up to the taleÆs final pages. Cody makes an unlikely hero with his firm resistance to formal education and singular focus on an NFL career, yet readers cannot help rooting both for his success as a detective and with his other goals. The reasons Clea and Cody, an odd-duck pairing from the start, might be attracted to each other are poorly delineated. Finally CleaÆs kidnapping makes less sense as the days stretch on. What might have begun as a petty threat clearly becomes a major crime and releasing her without consequences is not possible, yet readers are unlikely to recognize such flaws until they have finished compulsively turning the novelÆs pages. Abrahams writes a fine thriller that is pitched to attract everyone from reluctant readers to sports fans to romantic idealists.ùMegan L. Isaac.

ALA Booklist (Wed Jul 01 00:00:00 CDT 2009)

Abrahams steps away from his Echo Falls series in this compulsively readable mystery for older teens. Cody Laredo, star of his Colorado high-school football team, is crazy about Clea Watson, but her wealthy father, who disapproves of her relationship with Cody, sends her away to Vermont's Dover Academy. Cody's troubles multiply after he severely injures his knee, flounders academically, and drops out of school. Then a newspaper headline announcing that Clea has disappeared finally penetrates Cody's misery, and he heads east to join the search. The novel's mystery elements reveal Abrahams' practiced hand: the well-placed clues are a natural part of the narrative; the deductive reasoning flows from the character; and a fair but completely misleading red herring lures the reader into complacency. As the solution is gradually revealed, so is Cody's true character, and he emerges as an authentic teen awakening to his abilities. The ending is too abrupt, but the intriguing puzzle will have readers racing through the pages, and it is Cody himself whom readers will remember after the puzzle is solved.