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Book Summary and Reviews of The Off Season by Catherine Murdock

The Off Season by Catherine Murdock

The Off Season

by Catherine Murdock

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  • Jun 2007, 288 pages
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About this book

Book Summary

Grade 7–10. Life is looking up for D.J. Schwenk. She's in eleventh grade, finally. After a rocky summer, she's reconnecting in a big way with her best friend, Amber. She's got kind of a thing going with Brian Nelson, who's cute and popular and smart but seems to like her anyway. And then there's the fact she's starting for the Red Bend High School football team—the first girl linebacker in northern Wisconsin, probably. Which just shows you can't predict the future. As autumn progresses, D.J. struggles to understand Amber, Schwenk Farm, her relationship with Brian, and most of all her family. As a whole herd of trouble comes her way, she discovers she's a lot stronger than she—or anyone—ever thought.

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Reviews

Media Reviews

Starred Review. "Readers will root for her at every tragicomic turn, and will hope to hear from her again in future novels" - School Library Journal.

"J. is an easygoing, likable narrator, full of self-deprecating humor and insight, and her struggles, whether they are everyday or life altering, will resonate with teen audiences." - Booklist.

This information about The Off Season was first featured in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.

Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.

Reader Reviews

Write your own reviewwrite your own review

jess

the book
I thought that this book was fabulous!! I had to read it for summer reading and thought that it was going to be horrible but I loved it! now i am going to read the next one! I loved it!!!!

michelle hable

Amazing
This book was truly amazing, seeing everything the young girl faced. This should be a lesson to all teenagers; no matter what you're faced with, never give up, because times get easier.

Emma

Book Review
This book was OK. I did not like the fact that there was pride in this book. It is not a good thing to teach in schools. This is just my opinion but pride should not be allowed. Ever.

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Author Information

Catherine Murdock Author Biography

Photo: Greg Martin

I grew up in small-town Connecticut, on a tiny farm with honeybees, two friendly goats, and a mess of Christmas trees. My sister claims we didn’t have a television, but we did – only it was ancient, received exactly two channels, and had to be turned off after forty-five minutes to cool down or else the screen would go all fuzzy. Watching Alfred Hitchcock’s The Birds was quite the experience, because it’s hard to tell vicious crows from a field of static; this might be why I still can’t stand horror movies to this day. 

My sister Liz, who is now a Very Famous Writer and the author of Eat, Pray, Love & many other great books, was my primary companion, even though she wouldn’t even try to jump off the garage roof no matter how ...

... Full Biography
Author Interview
Link to Catherine Murdock's Website

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