By Ann Pfeffer
Release Date: March 15, 2013
Description:
To nineteen-year-old high school dropout Travis Walker, women are like snowflakes--
each one different, but beautiful in her own way.
He can charm any girl he meets, and yet down deep he fears he'll always be a loser like
his jailbird father. As the landlady threatens to evict him and his sick mother, Travis
takes a job he hates and spends his evenings picking up girls at a nearby night spot.
When he enlists in a teen program at the local fire station, he finds out he’s amazing at
it. Then he meets the smoking hot Kat Summers, enlists Kat’s friend Zoey to help him
woo her, and falls in love for the first time ever.
But he keeps the details of his life secret. His girl will never love him back if she knows
the truth about him….
Review:
This book was so much more than I thought it would be, and
it was pleasantly surprising, an absolute joy to read. This is the second
book I've read by this author and I'm not disappointed by her at all.
Really enjoyed reading this book and it pulled at my heart strings on many
different levels.
We meet Travis as the ever loving player that everyone knows
him to be, he will go to Chicks one day and hook up with somebody and just move
on to the next one the next day. But no
one really knew what was going on with Travis behind the scenes, the one who
went home at night to a deep sadness for his mother and a feeling of failure on
his own part. No one sees the turmoil
with having to drop out of school just so he can support his mom and himself
and the struggle he faces daily with trying not to become homeless.
One day he just happens upon an accident, does the right
thing by calling 911 and is absolutely fascinated with the firefighters that
come and rescue a motorcyclist that fell off a cliff. That one moment changed his life forever, he
knew he wanted to become a firefighter, and he knew he would be good at
it. It turned out well when he had a
chance at trying out and working with firefighters but there were always things
holding him back, such as responsibilities, the absolute need to work and
support his mother. These were secrets
he didn’t tell anyone, even someone he met and finally believed he cared
for.
Things had changed for Travis dramatically after this accident
he witnessed. Throughout the book your
heart goes out to him and all the trouble he goes through, it’s as if he just
can’t catch a lucky break at all. If it
wasn’t one thing it was another and he was constantly worried that his secrets
would be found out. It was a rather
endearing story about growing up and realizing that you can be exactly what you
want to be and you can definitely be better than you parents were, are or every
thought of becoming. Even with his relationship
with Zoey growing more each day he still finds it hard to admit the secrets he
holds back from her.
This book really goes to show you that if you put the effort
in things can happen for you and even if you are down in the dumps, literal or
not, there are always people out there who are willing to help. You just have to learn to trust them. I really loved this cover; even though it
seems a little cocky you can see a little bit of that lost person in that
picture. I will say that the title really
doesn’t do this book justice because it’s so much more than him being an
attractive guy that girls levitate to, so much more.
Excerpt:
Only fifteen minutes since I’d entered the halls of
Perdido High School and already the beady eye of authority was upon me. I
hadn’t even done anything wrong.
Yet.
“Travis!” Ms. Valenzuela called out to me from the
door of the guidance office. Although she was getting old, maybe into her early
forties, she hadn’t let herself go. She had great legs, which were hidden today
by her lime green pants.
“Yo.” I loped over and unleashed a grin that
combined sincere remorse for my failings with my irresistible charm.
She pursed her lips. “Don’t start with me,
Travis.”
I led the way to her office and took my usual
chair while she sat at the desk across from me. “New picture,” I said, nodding
to the updated photo of her two daughters. “Kelsi and … Julianne, right?”
She struggled to keep back a smile. “Yes, Travis. Those are their names.”
“Fifth and seventh grade, right?”
“Yes, Travis.” Now she was smiling for sure.
Maybe it was my blue-green eyes, or maybe my granite
abs, but I could always get women to smile at me.
Ms. Valenzuela opened my folder. “Six more
absences since your last visit to my office. Plus numerous missed homework
assignments. You’re this close to suspension.” She held up her thumb and index finger
a millimeter apart.
“I have to work, Ms. Val,” I said. “Gotta get
ahead, you know.” I had a promising position as a bus boy at Jake’s Burgers.
“How many hours are you working these days?”
“As many as I can get, whenever I can get ‘em.”
“You can’t cut back?” She knew she couldn’t push
me that hard. My family’s sudden move to Los Angeles in November of my junior
year, coupled with my erratic attendance at Perdido High, had screwed up my
graduation credits. With all my former classmates in college, I was starting my
senior year, again, at age nineteen.
“I can’t get weekend shifts at Jake’s,” I told
Ms.Val.
She didn’t like me working there, but she should
just be glad I wasn’t following in the path of my father, who knocked over a
convenience mart a year ago and ended up in prison for armed robbery. Mom had
gone to visit him, but I refused. He could rot there for all I cared.
“You’ve got one school year left to graduate. I
want to see you get that high school diploma, Travis. Or a GED at least.”
Between her fingers, she rolled a pen. It was the cheap kind the school
district bought that wrote for about five minutes before it crapped out on you.
“Yeah, well, we’re about to get evicted,” I said,
“so that’s kind of rearranged my priorities.”
About the Author:
Anne Pfeffer is the author of Any Other Night and The Wedding Cake Girl. She lives in Los Angeles, CA.
Contact:
Twitter @AnnePfeffer1
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