This was a super fast paced read! Penalty Kick by Terence O'Leary focuses on Josh, who's entire life is about soccer. His life comes to a crashing stop when he's driving his mom and himself home from practice and they get in a fatal car accident that takes the life of his mom. Josh blames himself and refuses to return to play soccer. Enter Brooke, who was just entered remission from cancer and is grateful to be alive. She sees many similarities between herself and Josh and reaches out to him at school. The two form a quick friendship...and more. Brooke is devoted to helping Josh, because helping him is also helping herself. Josh has a lot to dig through and at Brooke's urging, starts going to therapy. I really loved that this book showed a male character attending therapy in a positive light! Grief and therapy in our culture is usually so taboo and it shouldn't be. This book is short, just over 200 pages, and it was often hard to keep track of the timeline. All of a sudden it's a year past the accident and you, as the reader, aren't really sure how that year happened! A good, quick read!

3.5 stars

I tried to read this and put it down part way through. DNF.