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Title: My Most Excellent Year: A Novel of Love, Mary Poppins, and Fenway Park
Author: Steve Kluger
Category: Fiction, Young Adult
Rating: 3.5/5
Why I Read It: This book won the Nerds Heart YA tournament, where I served as a judge in the earlier rounds.

Summary: T.C. and Augie are not only best friends—after T.C.’s mom passes away, they adopt each other as brothers. Their freshman year brings first love, a Mary Poppins-obsessed 6-year-old boy, and of course lots of baseball.

Review: Y’all know how I feel about alternating points of view. And it was a little difficult to get into this book at first as T.C., Augie, and T.C.’s crush Alejandra took turns telling their stories.

But once I got a feel for the different characters, I found myself wearing a perma-smile as I read.

It was a bit like going to a baseball game. You get settled into your seat, excited for the game to start, but it’s a little slow-going at first. Then your team gets a good hit, and you can’t help but get caught up in the fun.

That’s exactly what this book is—good, clean fun. The romances were sweet and more than enough to satisfy my girly sensibilities. Alejandra was opinionated and saucy—my kinda girl. Augie’s penchant for musicals kept everything light. And T.C. was a good kid who I never got tired of hearing from.

The novel is told in narration, snippets of instant messenger conversations, emails, and diary entries, which was kept it fresh and entertaining.

My only criticism would be that the kids sometimes seemed a little too well-adjusted for being freshmen in high school. (Or maybe I was just an exquisite little mess in high school, and these kids are closer to normal.)

Above all, this is a feel-good book. Chris and Nymeth picked a great winner for the first Nerds Heart YA tournament!

Borrow: Your local library | Swap
Buy: Your local bookstore | Powell’s | Amazon

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