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This has been an interesting book to read (or listen in my case cause I’m lazy and busy) through together and analyze as there is a lot going on thematically, so I’ll do my best to express myself properly here.

The Good

One of the aspects that gripped me most about this book is how certain scenes actually made me dread what was going to happen next. The best example is when Matt and Jesse are racing to try and “rescue” Daisy from her father. Storytelling in general was fine and Fabry did a good job conveying how he wanted characters to be perceived and what emotions they were expressing. Unlikable people were certainly unlikable, sometimes to an extreme. The color in writing was good, though sometimes it seemed as though the “seasonings” in writing were sprinkled a little strongly.

The Bad

Unfortunately I didn’t really enjoy the book.

The town as a whole, as a character, was unlikable. Between general bullying by most people to straight up sexual assault- which I’ll get to in a second- Jesse and Dickie were not given a single bit of leeway throughout the entire story. Jesse did manage to grow from it to become a strong young adult, but we weren’t shown enough of her in 1984 to see the results of it.

Jesse was treated as an object in this book. She is something for Matt to save, his father to protect him from, Blackwood to look down upon, the town to shun. Even Matt’s grandmother, upon learning that Jesse’s mother has been dead for a time and social services needed to get involved, shook her head and said something about the mess Jesse made. When she is getting married, her decision is only made after everyone else in the room had their say and Matt even gave his dad permission to marry them AFTER everything had been said. Matt very much sees her as “his” due to a promise made a decade earlier by a young teenager running on hormones.

I would have liked to see some setups to have been paid off, and agree with @taylorclogston that the book seems to have been cut short. Things like Daisy’s allergy to bees and Matt’s brother were mentioned with consistency but never “cashed in on.” Seeing Matt either confront his brother or admit to himself that his brother truly was in the wrong would have been a growing point.

The Ugly

“The Promise of Jesse Woods” has an attempted rape and at least one implied sexual assault as well in it. While it does deal with death very seriously, recognizing the emotional impact to those close to the deceased, it fails to give weight to rape.

Victims of even attempted rape are forever changed. At the core, rape is a betrayal of basic human trust. It’s something that changes how you perceive intimacy forever. Some who experience it can never be physically close to their partners again. Such an emotionally and physically scarring assault can be written but it has to have respect and careful consideration as to how it’s used in the story.

Don’t get me wrong, it’s not portrayed as a good thing. The fact that Jesse seems numb to it should be horrifying. When Matt’s father was told and Blackwood entered his office I was anticipating a tension and emotion filled scene where at the very least Blackwood admits it was a very bad thing. He’s so concerned about the reputation surrounding his family that he hardly acknowledges the deed was done. Matt’s father should have been much more impacted knowing the kid his son hangs out with, a young girl, was sexually assaulted and nothing was done about it. He seems more upset because Matt is angry with him and that doesn’t sit right with me at all.

The End

I didn’t enjoy this book very much. It was pretty well written but seemed too short. For a Christian book there wasn’t an overbearing amount of preaching at the reader, choosing to use themes instead of direct passages most of the time. The specifics of relevant sporting events helped cement the story in the time period, even if I wasn’t familiar with what was happening.

“The Promise of Jesse Woods” did what it set out to do. Flavorful writing, harsh characters, and a constant feel of dirt and sun fill this book.