In a moving story of unexpected consequences, Harry Mazer (A Boy at War) and Peter Lerangis (The Sword Thief) talk about the war wounds no one sees.
Ben Bright has everything going for him. He's smart, has a loving family, and can sing and dance. Ben plays Tony to his girlfriend Ariela Cruz's Maria, and fights his best friend, Niko Petropoulus, as Bernardo, onstage in their high school's production of West Side Story. But by the end of chapter one, tensions mount between Ben and his best friend because Niko's figured out that Ben's going to boot camp.
Ben is in Iraq less than a month when his company hits an IED and he winds up in a coma. When he wakes up two months later, he has no memory. The majority of the book focuses on how Niko; Ariela; Ben's autistic brother, Chris; and Ben's parents respond to Ben's traumatic brain injury. As Ariela says, "I miss him. The way he was, I mean. The way he used to be." She confronts the reality, Niko adopts an optimistic attitude, and Ben's parents struggle to be there for Ben and for Chris, at the risk of sacrificing their own relationship. At times, the point of view shifts to Ben's thoughts, highlighted in italics, as he tries to make sense of the world around him and piece together his missing past.
This sensitive novel deals realistically with the constellation of characters in Ben's life and often exposes the raw emotion touched off by uncertainty. Teens will likely see war veterans differently after reading this book--and may think twice before enlisting. --Jennifer M. Brown, children's editor, Shelf Awareness