The Off Season - Catherine Gilbert Murdock

How can I talk about this book without ruining the whole story???? The Off Season is the eagerly anticipated sequel to Dairy Queen, which was about this awesome high school girl who single handedly saved her family's dairy farm, trained the rival high school's quarterback all summer, and then decides to play football herself on her own high school's team. I'm really not that into sports (or cows for that matter - i.e. First Boy) so you know if I LOVED the book that it had to be GOOD.

Dairy Queen ended at the very beginning of the school year and the football season, so I have to admit I was a bit confused about the title, The Off Season, but the reasoning soon becomes very clear. And that's pretty much all I'm going to give away. The book went in a totally different direction than I was expecting, but I admire the author so much for going there. And although I might have liked this book a teeny tiny smidgen less than Dairy Queen, Catherine Gilbert Murdock completely, completely landed the ending. Oooh I can't wait till everyone gets a chance to read it!

And now for my rant about the cover. At TLA we (Deban, I and one other person- Kerry???) were talking with the publisher about these new covers vs. the cow with the tiara, which I liked better. Apparently, the covers with pictures of real people tested better with teens. Ok, ok I'll buy that. BUT the girl on the cover of The Off Season does not look anything like the girl described in the book! D.J. is consistently described as a big girl, tall with maybe not the largest frame, and definitely not fat, but certainly bigger than the girl on the cover! It's a major plot point for goodness sakes! I just hate that society is so superficial that to sell books, "they" can't even put an honest representation of a girl football player on the cover. Grr... if D.J. were real, I think she would be pissed!