The Unlikelies

YA fiction 

     Sadie, protagonist of Carrie Firestone's The Unlikelies, is expecting the summer before her senior year of high school to be a routine of working at a farm stand and spending time with her parents and neighbors.  She's broken up with her boyfriend.  Her best friend, Shay, has graduated and flown to California for an idyllic sounding camp counselor job.

     All that changes one day at work.  A very drunk customer pulls up at the farm stand.  Sadie discovers a terrified, crying baby in the back seat.  She prevents the drunk from driving away, saving the baby but ending up in the hospital with serious injuries.

     Sadie is one of the five high school recipients of the Rotary Club's Homegrown Hero awards.  At the luncheon in their honor Sadie, Alice, Val, Jean, and Gordie real hit it off.  They start hanging out together.  

     Not surprisingly the Homegrown Heroes begin doing good deeds under the name The Unlikelies.  They start off safely, going after internet trolls.  But when they end up in a seedy part of New York City trying to rescue a drug addicted friend from armed and dangerous dealers...

     Maybe it's time for them to call for help before it's too late.

     This is an especially refreshing read for anyone who longs for fairness and justice and abhors internet trolls.

On a purrrsonal note, as I write this I am attending the UMaine graduate student graduation ceremony.  The point between the processional and the awarding of degrees when a gazillion (ok more like eight) people give long speeches.  Today I am here to celebrate friends in my program getting their degrees.  Next year I will be walking, barring disaster.  It's taking me a little longer.  I'm doing in six years what most people do in two.  My son, Adam, will be getting his masters in business the same day I get my masters in higher education. Today it felt real in a new way.  My heart soared as I heard Pomp and Students and saw the graduates filing in.  Next year, I was thinking, next year that will be me.  (Jules)

Damn straight!  (Tobago)

A great big shout out goes out to the grad students walking today and the undergrads walking tomorrow.  

Tobago and Jules Hathaway 

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