Going Places

Description:

Everyone had high expectations for Hudson Wheeler. His fourth grade teacher even wrote to his parents that Hudson was "going places." But everything went downhill after his father died on the battlefield of Iraq one year later. Now facing his senior year of high school without his two best friends by his side and with his teacher's letter still haunting him, Hudson seizes homeschooling as an opportunity to retreat from the world.

What happens during this year will prove to be anything but a retreat, as Hudson experiences love and rejection for the first time and solves the painful mystery of the “girl in the window”—an apparition seen only by the WWII vet whose poignant plight forces Hudson out of the comfort zone of boyhood.

Going Places is a peek into what male adolescence looks like today for those who don't follow traditional paths as they strive to find themselves.

My take:

There are a lot of stories like this in one way, but not enough in another. Hudson Wheeler chooses to forego his senior year and home school himself, not because he is angry or bullied or painfully awkward. That makes him different because he is not angsty or depressed. He actually is set on not  falling into the trap of post high school expectations but he does this with a  proposal to his mother to both take two classes at the high school (yoga and AP art), work at his two businesses that he creates (dog walking and Distress Dial for seniors with emergencies just below 911), and work on his graphic novel. He does that, but that is just one small part of a very convoluted and bustling story line. I think we need more stories like this about what home schooling might look like. Hudson's life is more about choosing an alternative path than dropping out, hiding out, religious zeal or disappointment and fear about the public school system

What also makes this different from other YA is that he is not the strong female protagonist, and as an 18 year old, he is pretty wimpy, but his commitment to his work and the maturity he shows to do what needs to be done is unusual. Sigh, unfortunately, he is still a doofus in the love department, just that he is not clueless as to how much of a doofus he is, he just cannot help it. 

Hudson, by the end of the book, becomes the heroic lead but not because of what he does. More because of the cast of side characters that he holds on to: Fritzy, Mr. Pirckle, his mom, his dead father, even Jennifer the pink male poodle. This book is not a fast read because the characters are eccentric and shooting off in different directions, but they are going places and the journey, not the destination is the adventure. 

A digital advanced copy provided by Net Galley and the publisher for an honest review.