Rowena’s review of Sidelined by Kendra C. Highley.
After being pushed to excel her entire life, high school basketball star Genna Pierce is finally where she wants to be. University scouts are taking notice, her team is on its way to the state tourney, and Jake Butler, the hot boy she’s daydreamed about since ninth grade, is showing some definite interest. When he asks her out and their relationship takes off, Genna believes things can’t get better.
Then, it’s over.
A freak accident ends her career before it’s even begun. Her parents are fighting more than ever, her friends don’t understand what she’s going through, and she’s not sure who she is without basketball. And while he tries to be there for her, Genna doesn’t understand how Jake could ever want the broken version of the girl he fell for.
Her life in a tailspin, Genna turns to the only solace that eases her pain: Vicodin.
I read the blurb for this book and immediately wanted it because this seemed like it was right up my alley. Not so much the addiction to prescription drugs but the high school basketball player part of it. Genna plays basketball for her high school team and she’s good. When she gets hurt, she struggles with the end of her basketball career dreams and she struggles with the pain and the prescription drugs that she takes to ease the pain. This book was one of those gritty books that takes a realistic look at what it’s like for athletes who get hurt playing the sports that they love.
Genna Pierce was the star basketball player on the varsity basketball team for her high school. When she gets hurt during an important game, her world as she knew it completely combusts. Gone are her college basketball dreams and now her days are filled with physical therapy, fighting parents and physical pain. Just before things went to shit, Genna started dating the guy that she’s had a thing for, for a very long time.
Genna spends the entire course of this book trying to overcome her addiction to painkillers. The book paints a realistic picture of what happens to a person who has a drug problem. The frustrations, the heartbreak and everything else that comes with all of that. It was hard to read at times for me because I found that I wasn’t very patient with Genna and her problems. I’ve never been addicted to drugs and I’ve never known anyone in my life who has had a drug problem so it was hard for me to read through this book because Genna gets really down on herself and I found myself getting so mad at her at every turn in the book. Every decision she made pissed me off and every person she pushed away made me want to smack her. But I can tell you that at the end, I really liked the way that Genna comes into her own. Reading the end, made the beginning and middle of this book so worth it because you saw just how much Genna grew and it was easy to forgive her for being such a dumbass throughout the book. She was stronger in the end and I really liked that this book resolved all of the issues brought forth in this book without needing another book.
Even though this book got on my nerves a lot, I’m glad that I read it. I don’t think I’d read it again so it’s hard for me to recommend this book. I don’t recommend it lightly. It was a hard book to get through but I think it paints a realistic picture at the affects that prescription drugs play in young kids lives and it opened my eyes to a lot of things I wasn’t aware of so in that aspect, I would recommend it but it’s not one of those books that I absolutely loved and want to shout my love for it from the rooftops. But still, it was good.
Grade: 3 out of 5
This book is available from Entangled. You can purchase it here or here in e-format. This book was provided by the publisher in exchange for an honest review.
Leave a Reply