The Off Season

The Off Season

By Catherine Gilbert Murdock (300 pages)

Published by Graphia

Bookish rating: 3.5

I wasn’t absolutely in love with Murdock’s Dairy Queen, the first book in this sporty farm girl series, and yet I found myself coming back for more D.J. Schwenk.

The Off Season picks up almost immediately where Dairy Queen left off, with D.J. playing football on the (boys’) high school team, her family’s dairy farm facing major economic strife, her boyfriend who happens to be QB for her school’s rival team, and her family that can’t communicate worth cow poo. (The family dynamics—especially between D.J. and her remarkably-complex-for-a-YA-novel dad—remain the strongest part of this book.)

First, D.J. effs up her shoulder, requiring her to choose between finishing the football season or being healed enough to play basketball, when the latter can almost definitely ensure her a college scholarship (and her folks are broke). Then her brother, who plays college ball for the University of Washington, gets a major spinal cord injury during a game. She hops a plane to Seattle to care for him, and frankly, much of this part of the book seems eerily similar to Season 1 of Friday Night Lights. Just saying.

A few quibbles. First, whether D.J. and her fam live in Wisconsin or not, I cannot imagine them all referring to UW (that is, “U-Dub”) as “the University of Washington” or even “Washington” among themselves and to each other, especially if their son or brother is second QB for UW. If you have spent more than 14 seconds in the Pacific Northwest, you know it’s U-Dub. So, that whole UW aspect just didn’t ring true to me.

Second, if we have to hear all about Wisconsin, a little detail on Seattle—since D.J. travels there—would’ve been nice. Was it drizzly? Anything? There was no sense of PLACE when she was in Seattle, unlike every other location she jumps around to.

Last, my biggest quibble is the same I had with the first book—oh, those interminable internal monologues that go on for pages and pages. Murdock can cover 4 or 5 events with nary a line of dialogue, which makes for the temptation to SKIM. I get that she’s trying to give us D.J.’s “voice” and all, but lordy. And speaking of voice, countless reviews rave about D.J.’s unique, fantastic, oh so witty voice, but I’m not crazy about it. Her tone comes across as too young and naïve—too “well, shucks” or something. Honestly, it sounds like a grown-up trying to write “young and insecure,” but maybe I’m just cranky or something.

Despite that my “quibbles” section takes up more space than anything else in this review, I actually did like the book. The family farm stress paired with the football is refreshing for YA literature (though the book could’ve used a lot more football). And, despite her sounding too young and written by the heavy hand of a Grown-Up, I do find D.J. Schwenk endearing, perceptive, and ultimately a character that I—and, more importantly, adolescent girls—can root for. What the heck, recommended.