Wednesday, December 12, 2007

Raider's Night by Robert Lipsyte


I picked up this little book yesterday when I felt that I needed to relax a bit at school. It's been on my to-read list since before it was published. I'm a big fan of the author's The Contender and his newest title Yellow Flag. Lipsyte pushes the edge in this one, making it for older high school students.

Matt Rydek is co-captain of the Nearmont Raiders football team, one of the studs of the school, and treated well. Cops, teachers, students, and especially girls, love him. But Matt has to deal with his dad trying to re-live his own high school football career through him, and pressuring him to make it to Division I and professional football. Matt's always been one of the good guys, even if he is constantly popping Vicodin for the pain (from games and his dad) and injecting who knows what into his body to get ripped. Matt is torn when a new student is violated by a co-captain on the last night of football camp. And I mean violated. The new kid (who was a promising tight end) was damaged mentally and physically and eventually tries to get retaliation in the locker room with a gun. Coaches find out and do nothing. Matt's dad doesn't want anything to hurt his sons' future. But Matt has to figure out what to do because keeping all these secrets are killing him.

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