Title: “Out of
Nowhere”
Author: Maria
Padian
Publisher: Random
House Children’s Books
Publication Date: February
12, 2013
Genre: YA
Reviewed by: Books4Tomorrow
Source: Received
from publisher via NetGalley
My star rating: 5/5
SUMMARY
High school senior Tom Bouchard doesn't care about his options,
until he meets people who have almost none.
At Chamberlain High School, Tom Bouchard has it made: captain and
star of the soccer team, boyfriend to one of the prettiest, most popular girls,
and third in his class, likely to have his pick of any college, if he ever
bothers filling out his applications. But life in his idyllic small Maine town
quickly gets turned upside down after the events of 9/11.
Enniston has become a "secondary migration" location for
Somali refugees, who are seeking a better life after their country was
destroyed by war—they can no longer go home. Tom hasn't thought much about his
Somali classmates until four of them join the soccer team, including Saeed. He
comes out of nowhere on the field to make impossible shots, and suddenly the
team is winning, dominating even; but when Saeed's eligibility is questioned
and Tom screws up in a big way, he's left to grapple with a culture he doesn't
understand and take responsibility for his actions. Saeed and his family came
out of nowhere and vanish just as quickly. And Tom may find himself going
nowhere, too, if he doesn't start trying to get somewhere.
REVIEW
Any
book that has sports in it is not my type of read. But a tagline comparing a
book to the movie The Blind Side –
which, in my opinion, was an absolutely brilliant movie – definitely gets my
attention. I’m glad I gave Out of Nowhere
a chance. It took me most of the weekend to finish reading it, even had me up
in the middle of the night reading a couple more chapters, but it was worth
every second. This book is definitely going on my Best Books of 2013 list!
There
is more sport in this book than I would’ve liked to read, but I’ll admit it was
written so well it felt as though I was in the centre of all the action. The
author managed to capture the atmosphere in the crowd and the anxiety and
excitement of the soccer players perfectly; I couldn’t help cheering loudly for
each game they won and feeling utterly sad about the ones they lost. I felt
every emotion the players felt. That said, this book is not entirely focused on
the sport alone. It is a heart-warming tale encompassing the struggles and
challenges of the everyday lives of a handful of individual characters learning,
through trial and error, to accept those who are different; and the main
character, Tom, learning some valuable life lessons in the process. It deals with – among other - diversity,
adversity, faith, and acceptance of the unknown.
This
story, thank goodness, isn’t an exact reproduction of the movie The Blind Side, but it does hold a few
similarities to it in showing how differently people deal with, and attempt to
cross (or not), cultural boundaries. The author efficiently and sensitively
portrays both perspectives by showing the pros and cons of accepting refugees
from a war zone, into a small town already under the strain of an influx of
foreigners. The characters are realistic and I couldn’t help feeling
emotionally invested in them. The author shares a lot of interesting background
information about Somalis and the Muslim culture in an effort to have the
reader better understand these characters in this book. It was clear she did
her research really well.
Out of Nowhere is one of those
books I’ll be thinking about months from now, and which I’ll definitely get as
a gift for family and friends. It’s not a story you read, but rather one you
experience. There were a lot of times I cried while reading this book, not only
because of heart-wrenching moments in the story, but also because how some of
the main character’s best intentions, didn’t turn out so well and resulted in far-reaching
consequences for some of the other characters. It showed me again how bad
things happen to good people, but also how life balances this out with good
things happening to good people when least expected. This is a multi-layered
story focusing on a lot of different themes, and even though the team sport
soccer is at the centre of it all, I wouldn’t have written it differently if I
were in the author’s shoes.
I
received a free copy of this book from the publisher via NetGalley, in exchange
for an honest review.
READ more REVIEWS
Out of Nowhere by Maria Padian has
19 reviews on Goodreads. Read it here.
ABOUT the AUTHOR
MARIA PADIAN is the author of Jersey
Tomatoes Are the Best and Brett
McCarthy: Work in Progress, which was an ALA-YALSA Best Book for Young
Adults. A graduate of Middlebury College and the University of Virginia, she
has also attended Oxford University and the Bread Loaf Writers' Conference.
Born in New York but raised in New Jersey, she now lives in Maine with her
family and their Australian shepherd, and was inspired by the events in her
community to write Out of Nowhere.
PURCHASE LINKS
AUTHOR LINKS
1 comment:
I'm glad you gave this book such a great review. I won this book and wasn't sure if I wanted to read it. Thanks for the review. :)
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