Toby's Trip by Charles Weeden, a coming-of-age tale, emerges as a thoughtful, deeply engaging, and funny story.
We are first introduced to Toby as the kind of kid everyone likes. Toby is the catcher for his baseball team, even though he struggles to squat as low as a catcher should. Interestingly, his inability to crouch helps the team more than if he were a flexible catcher. Toby is not your typical young character, as we quickly discover. This is seen, for instance, when he and the narrator stop at an ice cream store where Toby ends up sending the store clerk's temper through the roof as he samples too many ice cream flavors before he makes a choice. When he transfers to a new school, he sneaks into the computer room and alters his friend's results before flashing his deep dimples as if nothing happened. This he does on his first day at school, sending the signal that with him now around, things were going to be very different.
The story also captures the magic of the two friends' reconnection years later, years after they had drifted apart and survived what felt like apocalyptic disasters. Among them, one of them narrowly escaped death after being involved in a police chase while in a car that had drugs in it, while the other found himself watching his dad unravel into an unemployed, whiskey-soaked mess. These dark moments, marked by physical trauma, a broken family, and failed dreams, are made bearable and manageable by the narrator's sense of humor, which in this book feels like his secret weapon. Phrases like "adults do things backwards," "a doctor enters with a look indicating my life span should be measured in hours," and "Pipes is now doing eternal time" (he had just died) make both boys feel like lovable menaces--our menaces. We can't help but smile, especially because of how they look at disasters with straight faces and crack jokes out of them.
In what feels like Weeden's deliberate decision to focus on transformation instead of just the events happening in his characters' lives, he includes significant jumps between sections, masterfully skipping the over-in-between moments. This is a sign of mature craft, making us focus on what matters. He starts with a relaxed pace in the first pages where the stakes are still low, accelerates it during the baseball training moments with Toby, and then takes a sharp turn when adult expectations enter the picture. He makes the narrator feel like he is sitting right across from us, talking to us and working things out with us. His voice makes us appreciate the characters' growth, which feels earned because we have lived through the struggles with them.
Quill says: This book for young adults is definitely made for them because it speaks their language and celebrates their passions. It also addresses things that keep teenagers up at night, from identity issues to the terror of failure, parental expectations, financial anxiety, and the terrifying uncertainty of the future. If you want a book that will open conversations about resilience and the often unfamiliar path to becoming, Toby's Trip by Charles Weeden is your go-to.
