By: Will Leitch Publisher: Razorbill Average Rating: Binding: Paperback Label: Razorbill Number of Items: 1 Number of Pages: 304 Publication Date: December 01, 2005 Reading Level: Young Adult
Book Description: Everything comes easy for Tim Temples. He's got a sweet summer job, lots of love from the ladies, and parties with his high school buddies.Why does he need to go to college?
Then Tim falls hard for Helena—a worldly and mysterious twenty-twoyear- old. Their relationship opens his eyes to life outside the small town of Mattoon, Illinois. Now Tim has to choose:Will he settle for being a small town hero, or will he leave it all behind to follow his dreams?
A Great Read About Friends & Family I really enjoyed "Catch". Will Leitch realistically captured Tim and his friends. There were many similarities to people in my life. I laughed; I cried; I hope Will writes another book. Also any book that can get a reference to Eric Cartman in the first sentence and a library reference on the first page is my kind of book!
Good read I thought overall the book was very amusing and great read for young adults, although the rape scene semmed very out of place
How did this guy ever get published While the story itself is a good idea, the execution is awful. This author cannot write. The cliches, the awkward sentences, the forced dialogue . . . it took everything I had to finish the book . . . and then return it. I was not going to allow my students to read writing this bad; it goes against EVERYTHING I have been trying to teach them.
From someone who knows This book really nails it dead on, of what life is like in small town america for a 18 year old kid. I am from Mattoon Illinos, and as reading this book I could not help but put my self in the places talked about, even Lenders where I worked the summer after high school. Most books about small town america fake it and force it, but as some one who lived the life it is dead on.
Courtesy of Teens Read Too There is a trend among young adult literature to stage the proceedings in big cities, well-known towns of glitter and glam such as Manhattan, Chicago, and Los Angeles. And although there are books out there that feature the small towns of America, they usually feature made up burgs and use euphemisms to get small-town life across. This is not the case with CATCH, and for that I can be grateful. I can be even more grateful that the author set his story in Mattoon, Illinois, a place that actually exists, is where Mr. Leitch grew up, and that is located only about two hours from both where I myself grew up and where I now reside.
Mattoon is a city, not a town, and is larger than my own hometown and yet smaller than the place I now call home. But when I opened up my copy of CATCH and immersed myself in the life and times of Tim Temples, I was immediately brought back to my own adolescent years. The Hardees parking lot where the high-school kids gather could be the same Hardees lot that I knew intimately from weekend cruising. The Lender's Bagels plant could be the reincarnation of the Quaker Oats plant that once resided in a neighboring town during my youth. Jacob Kuhns, the small-bit actor who is the most famous person ever to come from Mattoon in CATCH, and Tim's dad, who played Minor League baseball for a St. Louis Cardinal's affiliate in his younger days, could be dead-ringers for the celebrities of my own small hometown.
Tim's brother, Doug, attends the University of Illinois in Champaign/Urbana, a college I myself once considered attending. Jessica, the good-girl of Mattoon, could be any number of girls I went to school with. Could be, in fact, me. The "Buck Fush" bumper sticker can actually be seen, to this day, on the rusted out pick-up trucks I still see when I go back to my hometown for a visit. The yearly Bagelfest, with it's parade through downtown, mimics the ones I saw as a child.
In a word, CATCH brings to life small-town America in a way that no other book has ever done. Although it's the story of Tim Temples, of the summer between high-school graduation and probable college admittance, it's a lot more than that. It's the story of what it's like to grow up with everyone in town knowing your name; of the cops understanding that you're not a bad kid for having an open container of alcohol in your moving vehicle; of people expecting you to follow in the footsteps of a semi-famous father and brother that you know you'll never have the ability--or desire--to fill.
This isn't growing up in New York City, or L.A., or the gigantic metropolis that is Chicago. This is real life, real America, the ups and downs of growing up, of falling in love, and of wanting to be the kind of person you can be proud of. This is the story of a guy who wants to break out, not necessarily of small-town America, but of small-town thinking. This is Tim's story, and my story, and the story of hundreds of thousands of teenagers throughout Midwest America.
You can't go wrong reading CATCH, and Mr. Leitch can never go wrong by accepting who he is, where he came from, and who he's become--which is the author of one hell of a great book.
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