Plan B by Steven Verrier
Publisher: Saga Books
Publish Date: March 17, 2010
Paperback, 186 Pages
My Review:
Plan B is about how one single decision can change your life and how with that decision you can make further decisions to either improve your life or just give up. Danny chose to make the best out of life. It wasn't always easy and his decision-making skills were constantly put to the test, but with the love and support of his parents behind him, he put one foot in front of the other and continued walking forward.
I found Plan B to be a fascinating novel. I haven't read many books focused on teenage boys as this one does. Danny is incredibly smart and focused and is pretty amazing. However I never felt that he wasn't real or that his situations weren't real. Mr. Verrier adds a nice does of reality to each situation. Danny has regrets and guilt. He is thrilled with some things and ho-hum about others. Danny is fascinating to watch make his decisions and I loved watching his life unfold before him, the ups and downs, and all the other events that made up this book.
I was captivated from the first page and spend the first 30 or so pages being outraged at the way Danny was treated by his high school. Then things calmed down and I was further captivated and my attention was held through the whole book. It's a quick and very enjoyable read.
One of the things I really like about this book is the fact that Danny's parents are involved in his life. There are so many young adult novels out there with parents' who don't care. Danny's parents work hard to be involved, but not overbearing especially when he goes off to college. They understand he needs to grow up but they are there for him and hold him to some accountability.
Plan B runs through a gamut of teenage boy emotions. There is love and lust, indecisiveness and decisiveness. He shows great maturity at times and can be immature at others, but mostly he is very thoughtful about his actions and he learns a lot about himself in this book.
A wonderful study of a teenage boy making his way through the pitfalls of high school, college and girls, Plan B is a book that is hard to put down and will stay with you long after you finish it. I think I will keep this one around for my sons when they grow older. I think a lot can be learned from this book no matter what your age or gender is.
My Rating: 4.75/5.0
About the Book:
Life was good to fifteen-year-old Danny Roberts. He was a model
student, playing violin in his high school orchestra and earning
straight A’s on the fast track to university. But then things went very
wrong very fast. The problems started when a teacher wouldn’t let Danny
out of class to go to the bathroom – even though he said “I’ve really
got to go!”
Danny responded by defying authority for the first time in his life.
That shocking act of defiance earned him a suspension, and Danny’s
troubles snowballed from there. But Danny isn’t your typical student,
and he doesn’t take his lumps lying down. He fights back on his terms as
he plots a course through uncharted waters.
About the Author:
Steven Verrier, born in the United States and raised in Canada, has
spent much of his adult life living and traveling abroad. Publications
include
Plan B (Saga Books, 2010),
Tough Love, Tender Heart
(Saga Books, 2008),
Raising a Child to be Bilingual and Bicultural
(Hira-Tai Books of Japan), and several short dramatic works (Brooklyn
Publishers, USA). Currently he is living with his wife, Motoko, and
their five children in San Antonio, Texas.
You can visit his website at
StevenVerrier.com
Read an Excerpt
Though his parents had
pushed him hard to make a hotel reservation in Paris before leaving the
States, Danny, hardly strapped for cash but mindful of nearly every
penny in his pocket and bank account, had ruled otherwise. He’d read a
stack of books about traveling in Europe, and one, Europe on the Cheap,
had warned him in no uncertain terms not to make any hotel reservations
before starting his trip. It would be a lot easier, the book said, to
find reasonable accommodations upon arrival at Charles de Gaulle
International Airport, where desperate hoteliers would be dispatching
workers to round up travelers to fill up unoccupied rooms. Travelers
arriving at night would be able to play hardball and score rooms of any
class for pennies on the dollar. But the reality awaiting Danny was that
Paris was packed to the rafters, hostels were filled beyond capacity,
and any hotel rooms that were still vacant were going for exorbitant
prices.
Identifying himself as an American college student on summer vacation,
Danny breezed straight through immigration, exchanged a hundred dollars
for Euros, and then spent half an hour looking through brochures at a
travelers’ aid bureau at de Gaulle and bartering in basic French with a
few hotel agents who seemed intent on taking him for every Euro he had
and then some. Though Danny wanted to see Paris, he decided to postpone
that indulgence until later in his journey. Now, with no place to stay,
and with night about to sneak up on him seven hours earlier than usual,
he decided this would be as good a time as any to try out his Eurail
Pass, which offered him fifteen days of unlimited travel on its
intercity rail network covering much of the continent.
It took Danny, a novice at riding trains, a few hours to arrive at the
Gare de Lyon, a station recommended in some of his guidebooks. As soon
as he arrived there he learned he could have taken a bus from de Gaulle
directly to the station and made the trip in under an hour. Determined
not to rush into any other bad decisions, he decided to relax at a café
he’d noticed near the station.
Not having his French footing yet, Danny looked about as disoriented as a
hayseed dropped out of a plane into the middle of Manhattan. Such was
all too apparent to a young blonde who sidled up to him as he headed for
the café.
“Puis-je vous aider?”
“Uh, no, merci,” said Danny once his tongue was untied.
“Oh, you’re American.” Danny stopped and looked at the attractive young
woman, who was about eighteen or nineteen. His disappointment that his
accent had given him away as an American was mitigated greatly by the
fact that a very pretty young female, dressed in tight shorts and
smiling broadly, was standing barely a foot away from him.
“That’s right,” he said.
“What is your name?”
“Daniel.” He said it with a French accent, with heavy stress on the last
part.
“Where are you going, Daniel?”
“I was just going to have a snack before catching a train tonight.”
“You’re leaving Paris?”
“I didn’t plan to. I’ve just arrived but couldn’t find a cheap place to
stay.”
“Perfect,” she said. “My name is Julienne. You stay in my house.”
Danny, not yet wise to the world, stood there flatfooted, not sure which
foot to pick up next.
“You don’t like?” said Julienne, smiling with the confidence of one
who’d seen it all. “Daniel stays at Julienne’s house. Doesn’t that sound
good?”
Unsure whether he was talking to a prostitute or a good Samaritan, Danny
didn’t want to snuff out his prospects just yet. He’d hinted, after
all, that he wasn’t a rich man – not that his worn clothes and tattered
bag would have left much doubt anyway – and she still seemed interested …
but in what?
Continue to check out Steven as he tours the blogosphere duirng the month of July with
Pump Up Your Book Promotion
FTC Information: I received this
book from Pump Up Your Book Promotions for review. I have Amazon links on my review pages
but I do not make any money from these because of NC laws. I put them
solely for people to check out the books on a retail site.
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