Schmidt packs his story with seemingly tough but emotionally vulnerable males circling orphaned Jupiter, who is 3 years old and a charismatic scene stealer. Eighth grader Jack, her foster brother, is positively head over heels, but so (startlingly) is his cross-country running mentor and erstwhile tormentor, Jay Perkins. Then Jupiter\u2019s birth mom\u2019s parents suddenly show up with a custody claim just as her formal adoption is about to go through. Even her thoroughly unlikable, domineering grandfather turns out to be harboring a deep-seated grief that shows itself when tragedy seems about to strike that troubled family once again. Despite his first-person narration\u2019s straightforward tone, Jack is anything but reserved in his feelings, and whether moved by rage, pain, or (most often) joy, he\u2019s constantly breaking into tears. Readers\u2019 eyes aren\u2019t likely to stay dry, either, considering the sharply felt emotional stakes and the growing tension as the legal claim heads to a hearing, while Jack\u2019s small town loyally rallies around him and his loving foster family. The outcome remains in doubt until a final, powerful release. The cast presents white; returning fans will welcome back several characters from previous outings, most notably Coach Swieteck, a hard-nosed, amputee war veteran.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Schmidt packs his story with seemingly tough but emotionally vulnerable males circling orphaned Jupiter, who is 3 years old and a charismatic scene stealer. Eighth grader Jack, her foster brother, is positively head over heels, but so (startlingly) is his cross-country running mentor and erstwhile tormentor, Jay Perkins. Then Jupiter\u2019s birth mom\u2019s parents suddenly show […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":196,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-195","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-interesting"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/195"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=195"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/195\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/196"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=195"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=195"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=195"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}