Steve Kluger - My Most Excellent Year

There are only three great loves in T.C. Keller's life: the Red Sox, his father, and his best friend and unofficial "brother," Augie. But ninth grade is the year when he falls head-over-cleats in love with Ale Perez. She's pretty, sassy, smart, and a great dancer. Ale is so busy playing hard to get that she doesn't realize that she just might be falling head-over-tap shoes for T.C.'s Boston accent, too. Meanwhile, T.C.'s best friend, Augie, is falling in love as well, but with a boy? It may not be so clear to him; but to the rest of his family and friends, it's totally obvious that Augie, who loves musicals and old school screen sirens such as Judy Garland, is head-over-heels in love with Andy Wexler.
Told in alternating perspectives, this is the story of their most excellent year, where these three friends discover themselves, love, and that a little magic and Mary Poppins can go a long way.

Comment: Somehow I saw myself really enjoying this author's writing style and graphic content which includes notes, post it notes and other means of conveying information about the plot without having characters really exchanging a dialogue. Since the previous books were good enough for me, I was quite curious about this one too and I'm very glad I read it.

In this story we follow the diary entries, emails, text messages and other ways of having information being known of three teenagers, TC, Alejandra and Augie. The books focuses mostly on their 9th grade which, according to them, was the greatest year of their lives - while they write, they are on the 11th grade.

Throughout all the communication ways included, we get to know about who they are, who their families are and why the three of them have a very close bond. The plot moves forward in time while we move from one protagonist's entries to the other, alternatively, until the end and the journey is both sweet and poignant.

I won't be able to write much about this that I haven't already conveyed in the lines above. I really liked this story's style and the author's voice is very much obvious for those who have read other things by him.

This notion of letting the reader grasp meaning and sometimes emotions through secondary messages is not original but it's different enough to make it addictive. Most of the plot is given to us by diary entries, whish are longer and more detailed and focus on things which have happened or that the protagonist will face soon. This is a method that should put the protagonists at a good distance from the reader but since all are so special, this never happens.

There are three protagonists:

TC, whose mother died while he was little so he writes his diary for her and we get to know about his feelings and his father and his unawareness of himself, of how others see him. TC is a great guy, cares about his friends and is trying to convince Alejandra to be his girlfriend.

Alejandra is the daughter of an ambassador, there are expectations about what she will do but her dream is to be a performer, both in dance and musical theater. She doesn't think TC is good boyfriend material but with time she starts changing her mind.

Augie is a boy whose friendship with TC made them brothers for life and they will try their best to help another little boy see his dream come true as well. He is gay, eventually falls for a boy in their class but it seems everyone realizes this before he does.

The complexity of the relationship between these three and how they interact is the best part of the novel. I can't describe how good it felt to read about them and to know little details that help complete the big picture without it being too obvious. We get to know all that matters about them as the pages go by and I had a great time doing this.

This is a great story about discovering what we are able to do if we believe in our dreams. A little too sugary, yes, but emotional too.

If there is a flaw for me is how unrealistic some scenes and situations were portrayed. Some things just can't be as believable as they are described. I understand the drive to write about the greatness of some aspects but it felt a little too incredible and the protagonists' faults and problems weren't as dealt with as they should for this to appear more believable. Still, it was a good story and I couldn't put the book down.

Although it's not a perfect book, for me it worked perfectly in this moment I read it. Sometimes it's good to read about good people and believe in the magic of possibilities.

Grade: 9/10