"Hooked" by Liz Fichera

NOTE: I received this book from Netgalley.

I should say that this is the very first book I read, where the sport wasn't football, or soccer. I'd certainly not read a book about golf, so I was totally confused by all the special terms - holes, clubs, score keeping, etc. All that aside, I must say that the story was rather nice. The author has addressed several types of conflicts:

-race-based (Native American vs. Caucasian)
-gender-based (a girl on an all boy golf team)
-friend-friend (do you stand by your friends no matter how wrong they are, or do you stand by what's right?)
-parent-child(how the parents' expectations or disappointment can and do affect - sometimes to the point of ruining - a child's life)

With all that said, I need to say a bit about the characters, too. So here goes:

-Fred, the lead female, was a very nice girl. She cared about her family (mostly about her brother and dad, because her mom was playing the victim all the time) & about golf. Her character was captivating and I think I could like her as a friend. She was real, honest, kind and completely innocent to the world.

-Ryan was such a wuss! I could hardly stand him until I reached the last 50 pages or so. He saw how wrong and out of his mind his friends were, how rudely they treated Fred, but he still didn't do anything to stop them. I'm just glad that he figured out who and what was important and what was the right thing to do. I'm a firm believer in forgiveness, so yeah, Ryan got it.

-Which leads me to Seth. He was one sick dude! There were times when I thought he was for a straight jacket and a mental institution. There was something very wrong with that guy. And the problem was really with his step dad, why didn't even one of his friends raise the issue? After all, domestic violence is punishable by law, isn't it?

Anyway, I don't think you'd regret reading this book. The story was realistic, and captivating.

My rating is