T. Glen Coughlin
Auteur van One Shot Away: A Wrestling Story
Werken van T. Glen Coughlin
One shot away : a wrestling story 1 exemplaar
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Statistieken
- Werken
- 3
- Leden
- 31
- Populariteit
- #440,253
- Waardering
- 3.0
- Besprekingen
- 2
- ISBNs
- 5
Admittedly, it did take me a while to get into this book. The book is told by a third person limited narrator, which each chapter centering around one of the team members. I took me a couple of chapters to really get a feel for the characters. But once I understood the dynamics of the relationships, I was really interested in seeing what happened next. While I was a bit bored at the beginning because I could not visualize the wrestling, by the end on the novel my heart was racing during the matches. The author does a great job at pulling in readers who, like me, know nothing about the sport.
Before I referred to this novel as a "wrestling book" and I put those quotations in for a reason. Although this novel does center around the sport, it is much more about team dynamics and internal motivation. Anyone who has been on a team for anything or has pushed him or herself to reach a certain goal can relate to the struggles faced by the characters of this novel. That is what I love about contemporary novels, the troubles and struggles faced by the characters are almost always universally applicable.
I mentioned that the novel is told from the third person point of view of multiple characters, each chapter featuring a different member of the varsity wrestling team. What I did not yet mention is that the story is further broken down into parts. The earlier parts feature the sport much more than the later, which I found intriguing. By the later parts, many of the characters find themselves in life changing situations. This novel is far from squeaky clean: there are detectives, federal and misdemeanor crimes, a prostitute, and plenty of explicit wordings. It is real and it is gritty.
I personally love novels that feature male POV's, and Coughlin did it well. Perhaps it is because unlike many YA novels featuring male POV's, the author actually is a male... Regardless, if you are like me and love to read male POV's, this is a good one to check out. One Shot Away is not just about wrestling. It is about teenage struggles and pressures while on the threshold of adulthood - something very real and difficult and not to be dismissed.… (meer)