Jonathan Friesen
It has been a while since I have read a novel that has just stuck with me. Jonathan Friesen’s Jerk California with Penguin Group Publishers is such a novel. He masterfully created dynamic characters that I really cared about.
The story’s main character is a rural Minnesota boy named Sam Carrier, whom we meet in his senior year of high school. His tics have made him a social outcast by his peers and a source of pity by many adults. Surprisingly, his disability is not the focus of the story. Sam lives with an abusive step father and a mother that doesn’t know how to help him. Sam meets Naomi, a popular and very beautiful girl from a nearby school. He falls hard but only admires her from a distance until after graduation, when his whole world begins to change for the better.
Sam and Naomi are just teenage kids, but they are conflicted, intelligent, drawn toward each other even though they come from opposite ends of the social spectrum. Sam is poor, suffers from Tourette Syndrome, and unpopular at school. Naomi is wealthy, beautiful, and popular. Their paths keep crossing until one day fate takes them on a journey of self discovery together. …continue reading
