Finished It...

Shift, by Jennifer Bradbury

Rating: ☆☆☆

This was a title I had been waiting to read since November when we scanned the nominations for the 2009 ALA Best Books for Young Adults. Shift ended up making the cut, though I'm not entirely sure I agree.

Best friends Chris and Win have been planning a cross-country cycling trip for months, and right after their high school graduation, they decide to hit the road. Not only are they avid bikers, but they have other motivations for the trip--the two can enjoy one last hurrah together before they part ways, with Chris headed to Georgia Tech and Win to prestigious Dartmouth in the fall; they can spend the summer away from their annoying parents, Chris's mom is a nagger, and Win's dad a control freak; and they can bask in the glory of cycling from West Virginia all the way to Seattle, Washington. The twist is that Chris returns from the epic journey, but Win does not--he disappears, and Chris is left to pick up the pieces and try to figure out what happened to his best friend, while dealing with pressure from the F.B.I. and Win's powerful father.

The story is told through from the first person, with Chris as the protagonist. The chapters alternate--one chapter will be set in the present day, with Chris being questioned by investigators, and the next chapter will be a flashback to the cycling trip itself. This format sounds confusing, but as long as readers make this observation early on, the story is quite easy to follow.

As is evident with the rating, I had a few problems with this book. First, some of the characters didn't seem real to me. Chris's mom is your typical paranoid, worrisome parent, though this was a minor annoyance since her role lessens as the story progresses. Win's father also felt a bit wooden. As the owner of a chemical factory, he is extremely wealthy, but Bradbury tries too hard to make him look like a rich tyrant; she relies too much on dialogue and not enough on action. While he's supposed to come across as intelligent and maniacally by-the-book, his speech is clumsy, cluttered, and awkward. However, my biggest beef is with the story itself and the naivety of Chris. I could sort of tell what Win's fate was fairly early, thus ruining any sense of mystery. The clues that Chris receives regarding his whereabouts seemed blatantly obvious to me, but for some reason, it takes Chris a few chapters for the light bulb to kick on. The flashbacks provide a wealth of indicators as to Win's fate as well. Chris is Win's best friend, yet he can't see all the evidence right in front of him? Please.

I still gave this book a solid three-star rating, and if you like missing-person related stories, you would probably enjoy this book. There are also rewarding themes of friendship, growing up, and the need for independence. I still wondered where Win was throughout, I was just disappointed to realize that my early assumptions were correct. I was hoping Bradbury was going to pull a Pete Hautman on me, but it didn't happen.