Falling - Hardcover

Wilhelm, Doug

3.63

221 ratings by Goodreads

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0374322511 ISBN 13: 9780374322519

Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux (BYR), 2007

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Everyone expected fifteen-year-old Matt Shaw to be Jeffords Junior High's star basketball player. But Matt never went out for the team. He won't even touch a ball anymore, and he hardly talks to anyone. No one understands why he's changed, but Matt knows that it's his "golden child" older brother who's really been doing all the changing. Matt can't imagine what would happen to his family if word got out about Neal's drug habit and the strung-out strangers he's seen coming and going from the house when their parents aren't home. Matt can't tell anyone what he knows - not his parents, not the police detective who refuses to leave him alone, not even Katie, the one girl he's ever really had feelings for. But even Matt has to wonder eventually if he's holding on to someone he may already have lost.

With his unparalleled ear for teen dialogue and emotions, Doug Wilhelm's new novel is a captivating look at falling apart, falling in love, and all the falling in between.

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About the Author:

Doug Wilhelm has written several books for children and young adults, including The Revealers, which has been embraced by educators as a unique way to discuss school bullying. Born in Oregon and raised in suburban New Jersey, he studied English at Kenyon College in Ohio, then went to work as a newspaper reporter. In 1981, he left his job and traveled to Asia, where he spent two years and became a freelance writer, editor, and teacher of English in Kathmandu, Nepal. He has worked as a journalist for The Boston Globe and once wrote the words for Ben & Jerry's ice cream containers, a job that involved getting paid to eat ice cream.

He started writing for young people with a science fiction novel for the Choose Your Own Adventure series. He found he loved writing for young adults, and he's been doing it ever since. Wilhelm often visits schools to talk about The Revealers and the issues it raises. He is six feet, ten inches tall, and lives in Rutland, Vermont.

From Booklist:

Part romance, part friendship story, and part dark drama, this contemporary novel, set in the author's Vermont hometown, gets exactly right the way many teens talk and what they care about. Matt and Katie meet on the Net. Katie is tight with her girlfriends, though not with her single-parent mom. Matt is a basketball star, but instead of playing, he's spending his time plugged into his music and walking the streets alone. Could he be reacting to his older brother's doing drugs--and also dealing? There are several big holes in the plot (Matt's successful parents, for instance, worry about Matt but not about his brother), and the message is obvious. Still, YAs will like the fast talk from the teens' viewpoints, whether it's delivered through IM chat or the tender, urgent words of lovers. The addiction scenes are stark, and the story holds surprises to the end. Hazel Rochman
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