Number 6 Fumbles - Softcover

Solar-Tuttle, Rachel

Softcover

ISBN 10: 074342851X ISBN 13: 9780743428514

Publisher: MTV Books, 2002

Synopsis

In this powerful novel, an accomplished young woman, suddenly seized by self-doubt, falls headfirst into a fervent exploration of the merits and pitfalls of being good.
Rebecca Lowe is an upbeat coed, the one who gets straight A's, the one friends and teachers count on. But when she sees No. 6 fumble the football at the Penn-Cornell game, Beck begins to question what would happen if she "fumbled the ball" in her own life. Suddenly filled with uncertainty, she begins to devolve, indulging in a personal odyssey of hard drinking and casual hookups, staying out all night as she tries to find the real Rebecca. But somehow the truth keeps evading her.
Gritty and passionate, Number 6 Fumbles is an irresistible story for anyone who has ever feared failure only slightly more than success.

About this title

About the Author

Rachel Solar-Tuttle is the author of Number 6 Fumbles, a Simon & Schuster book.

Reviews

A major blunder by the unknown, eponymous football player at a Penn/Cornell game stirs feelings of doubt and instability in Rebecca "Beck" Lowe, a Penn sophomore and the general life-of-the-party, resilient heroine of this spunky but rudimentary debut. Though her physical features "will never add up to cuteness," Beck is "the fun one... who keeps the buzz going," scoring well both in fraternity bars and in class, often attending one right after the other. A pseudo-panic sets in as the fumble resonates for Beck, and she begins to scrutinize the many facets of her second year of college: her volatile relationship with her parents, the ongoing frenzied frat bar search for Mr. Right, her nagging virginity. For much of the book, barfly Beck (equipped with fake I.D.) busies herself taste-testing such potential new boyfriends as the elusive Ryan, who lies about his age and never calls; the bighearted Trey; or sweet, attentive Scott. Despite the heroine's forays into hip, collegiate self-analysis, Solar-Tuttle's account of this fruitless bed hopping never develops into something bigger or deeper. The author graduated from the University of Pennsylvania, magna cum laude, and though she confidently relates the cliched college scene of excessive drinking, sordid sexual escapades and self-exploration, that's all the book has to offer. As a novel, this translates into a conglomeration of silly, eventually tedious misadventures. Even younger readers won't laugh so much as wince at this toothless, adolescent fluff, explicitly tailored for undergrads whose steadfast mantra is "anything's possible when you're drunk." Agent, Alice Martell.

Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

For Ivy League student Beck, life is just bars and parties, with occasional classes or papers (on which she always gets As). So when Number Six on Penn's football team fumbles the ball, why does she feel so sad? Something about the incident stirs up buried feelings, like the weight of her parents' high academic expectations and her friends' assumption that she always be "up," coupled with the fear that, sooner or later, she, too, is going to drop the ball. Beck spirals down into depression, causing rifts with roommates and leading her to look for comfort with booze and boys. Solar-Tuttle's gently satiric depiction of college life captures the special world of 19-year-old students--from their slang and speech patterns to their "incredibly deep" insights, the kind that will seem very elementary to their future selves. College students and recent grads will relate to Beck's attempt to forge an identity separate from her parents and true to herself. Beth Warrell
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Edition details

• Publisher: MTV Books
• Publication date: 2002
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 074342851X
• ISBN 13: 9780743428514
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 242