• Speeding Bullet – Book Description

  After Nick Herrera saved a little girl from being his by a New York City subway car, things have been different….He has been different. Now it seems as if accidents are falling at his feet and he’s destined to play the role of the hero. But more importantly, Linda Lanko, one of the richest girls in the city, has noticed him — a below-average student from a poor family. But is Nick’s invincibility just good luck, or is something else responsible?

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From School Library Journal
Grade 7-12– Nick Herrera had not meant to become a hero. When he saw the little girl in the path of the subway train, he grabbed her without thinking. After the rescue, however, he begins to feel that he is special and that he has a talent for saving people. Shusterman has written a complex, multilayered novel disguised as a boy’s fantasy/adventure story. Nick is a natural-sounding, recognizable high school sophomore who has trouble in school and feels insecure about girls until the fateful day of the rescue. He then becomes a celebrity and starts dating the beautiful daughter of one of New York’s richest men. Events happen quickly, and readers are carried along by the short, suspense-building sentences. New York City itself is described in detail, and readers are given a real sense of the muck found under subway tracks, the changing face of a neighborhood as a high-rise building springs up, and the relentless parade of small tragedies New Yorkers may witness daily. Nick and his friend Marco are exceptionally well developed, but the female characters are not so carefully drawn. References to current figures such as Trump and diver Greg Louganis may date the story, but they are not overly distracting. The ending leaves several issues unresolved, but Shusterman has given YAs much material for contemplation. Full of action and symbolism, this is a book both students and teachers will love.

–Lucinda Snyder Whitehurst, County of Henrico Public Library–Fairfield Area Library, Richmond, VA
Copyright 1991 Reed Business Information, Inc.