Double Negative

DOUBLE NEGATIVE by Susan Marshall is a YA Contemporary novel that follows Reece after a recent shoulder injury that has upended her world. Not only does she have to take a break from her swimming team, where she was excelling, but she also has to switch high schools. Her fancy sports school, Elite, doesn’t keep spots open for bench warmers. Going to a more traditional school isn’t all bad though. From one side, Reece has more time to socialize and explore other interests, but from the other, she has to deal with her brother’s antics and the hot-and-cold basketball player whose secret could upend her world, again.

Overall, what this book does well is showcase the American teenager’s plight of getting accepted to college. Many of us cannot afford to pay for further education unless we get scholarships. Zain, in this book, is counting on his basketball scholarship, but there are many obstacles in his way, including a bad car accident that resulted in his leg being amputated. Reece is also looking for a sports scholarship. Though her family has more money, she still needs her athletic abilities to open doors for her. Her brother, on the other hand, is unsure he’ll be able to pursue what he actually wants to do at a school he actually wants to go to, so he jumps through hoops to get other extracurricular activities on his resume. It’s tough, and anyone going through or preparing for the college application process will be able to relate to these characters.

That being said, I had a hard time being fully invested in the story. For instance, it doesn’t make sense to me why Elite would displace its student-athletes to another high school for a short period of time when the students could stay there and rehab. It seems like a complete disruption of everything, and it was hard for me to buy that the Board of Education in the area would allow that. Perhaps this does happen in real life, but the brief explanation we get for it isn’t until very late in the book, and I would’ve liked that earlier on to help understand the full situation. I also found the constant on-again, off-again relationship with Zain prevented me from caring about it ultimately, and his vendetta against Jamie was almost too much.

Athletes, both current and past, especially those with injuries, will be fans of DOUBLE NEGATIVE. It peels back the curtain on what it takes to be competitive and what it means to be all in on something. It also gives readers a little nudge to remind us that we’re allowed to change our mind on what we want for our futures.