If Jack's in Love

Aug 11, 2012 Mme. rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: Anyone interested in rather or not you ever had doubts about your first love.

Recommended to Mme. by: My daughter, Jatiana (16yrs) introduced it to me @ our Bookclub, "La Société Secrète des Femmes".

Shelves: fiction, suspense

Truly, what impressed me the most-is the writer was 55 when he wrote, "If Jack's In Love", and it was his first novel! Goes to show you, it does not matter who you are, where you come from, what age you are or rather or not others think you can write or not... but it is knowing that if you have a talent for writing, just do it! Who cares what others think, just do it! What matters the most is what ones writing means to them. Stephen Wetta grew up in an environment with various types of people wi...more Truly, what impressed me the most-is the writer was 55 when he wrote, "If Jack's In Love", and it was his first novel! Goes to show you, it does not matter who you are, where you come from, what age you are or rather or not others think you can write or not... but it is knowing that if you have a talent for writing, just do it! Who cares what others think, just do it! What matters the most is what ones writing means to them. Stephen Wetta grew up in an environment with various types of people with unusual personalities that became a milestone to his achievement of a good novel. Once he realized all he had to do was to gather those experiences and put those memories on paper and the magic was on. He realized with some encouragement and resources he finally, managed to get it out there. I must say that I do not understand why, Stephen Wetta, the author did not receive a standing debut from the press like other novelists this year. Who died, gave them a crown and made them King? It was fascinating though, how I had to search every local bookstore in one of the most top 10 cities in the US to find a copy! Go figure! Thank goodness, otherwise I would not have had a piece of his wonderful work added to my collection of books.

Like, after reading this fictional story, I found pieces of scenarios that Jack experienced similar to when I was a young teen. So typical, were some of the characters in the writer's book. Kinda made you angry how stupid people really can be when confronted with the truth. Especially when they are bias and do not acknowledge it. Just throwing prejudice attitudes out there like there was no tomorrow. On top of all of that, having the audacity to throw it at you as though you were yesterdays trash and going on about their business like it never happened. Go figure again, lol!

Although this novel was written during a very controversial time in American history. I appreciate the writer's bravery to use candid outburst in the story yet at the same time, knowing when to inject subtle approaches so as not to offend the reader. He makes the reader lol because it is funny and sometimes dark with a little thrill of suspense to keep you from putting the book down. I love the wonderfully short chapters and his deep passion. Good to know that people can still find courage just from reading a book. Definitely, a family story and GoodReads :)
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Nov 08, 2011 Jessica rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: fiction, oh-its-love

Growing up in southeastern Ohio, I was surrounded by rednecks. Not Jeff Foxworthy, backwoods-hick rednecks, but legitimate, honest-to-God rednecks who wore tight Wrangler jeans to school, belonged to FFA and 4H, and skipped school on the first day of deer season. That was kind of the norm, and rednecks weren’t looked down upon – they often mixed well with the popular kids. However, we had a derogatory term for people who were considered too low-class to even be a redneck and it was the ultimate...more Growing up in southeastern Ohio, I was surrounded by rednecks. Not Jeff Foxworthy, backwoods-hick rednecks, but legitimate, honest-to-God rednecks who wore tight Wrangler jeans to school, belonged to FFA and 4H, and skipped school on the first day of deer season. That was kind of the norm, and rednecks weren’t looked down upon – they often mixed well with the popular kids. However, we had a derogatory term for people who were considered too low-class to even be a redneck and it was the ultimate insult when I was in elementary and middle school – we called them “rutters.” I have no idea where the term came from, and I had no idea until I went to college that no one outside of my area used the term. It’s a variation, I suppose, of being called white trash.

If Jack Witcher had gone to my elementary school, he probably would have been called a rutter.

In small-town Virginia in the late 60s, the Witchers are simply considered white trash. There’s rusted cars and broken toilets in their front yard. Pop can’t hold a job and challenges the other fathers in the neighborhood to fistfights over dogs. Mom is ugly and works as a cashier at the grocery store. The oldest son, Stan, is quickly following in his father’s footsteps – he’s a bully for no other reason than he doesn’t know any other way to defend himself. Twelve-year old Jack, though, is different. He’s smart, he’s thoughtful, and he just wants to fit in. He’s a good kid judged by his unfortunate lineage.

Jack’s only real friend is Mr. Gladstein, the town’s lone Jew who owns a jewelry store and protests segregation by moving into a rough black neighborhood. Mr. Gladstein helps Jack out by giving him a ring to woo Myra Joyner and encouraging the boy to believe in himself. Jack tries to take Gladstein’s advice, but his social status gets in the way – Myra likes Jack but won’t be his girlfriend because of his last name.

Things go from bad to worse for Jack when Myra’s brother, Gaylord, goes missing and the cloud of suspicion falls on Stan. Jack wants to believe in his brother’s innocence, but there’s a part of him that is frightened by Stan’s violent instincts and the holes in his story.

This book is so well-written, and comparisons to To Kill A Mockingbird are much-deserved. Like Scout, Jack struggles with the loss of his innocence in the face of violence and injustice in his small-town environment. Like Harper Lee, Wetta has somehow managed to capture a child’s innocence with such a genuine voice. There’s something about Jack, though, that is much more pathetic than Scout. He is a boy so punished by his circumstances, who desperately wants to understand things that are bigger than him. He’s smart and he’s perceptive, but he’s still a kid and Wetta never seems to forget that. Even when he’s using vocabulary beyond a normal twelve-year old’s lexicon, the reader is reminded that, while Jack sees tension and he wants to be able to explain it, the situation is often just beyond his ability to do so.

My only complaint about this book is the pacing. There's a slow build-up, then it's rushed as soon as we hit the climax - sort of as if Wetta just wanted to be done and couldn't figure out how to finish it. The result is less than fully satisfying, but only slightly so. There are so many levels to this book, so many ideas that are explored – class, race, faith, morals, justice, young love, obligation to family vs. obligation to community – and all of the plotlines carefully reflect these themes. The more I think about it, the more I fall in love with it. This is a book that I wholeheartedly recommend to everyone.
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Sep 11, 2012 Diane rated it 4 of 5 stars

Amy Einhorn Books excels at finding debut novelists with unique voices- Eleanor Brown's The Weird Sisters, Alex George's The Good American and most famously, Kathryn Stockett's The Help. All of these books draw the reader into another world with strong characters and writing.

Add to that list Stephen Wetta with his debut novel If Jack's In Love. Set in a Virginia suburb in 1967, Jack Witcher is a twelve-year-old boy with a gifted intellect and a difficult home life. His mother is a kind woman bur...more Amy Einhorn Books excels at finding debut novelists with unique voices- Eleanor Brown's The Weird Sisters, Alex George's The Good American and most famously, Kathryn Stockett's The Help. All of these books draw the reader into another world with strong characters and writing.

Add to that list Stephen Wetta with his debut novel If Jack's In Love. Set in a Virginia suburb in 1967, Jack Witcher is a twelve-year-old boy with a gifted intellect and a difficult home life. His mother is a kind woman burdened with a husband who cannot hold a job, fights with the neighbors and holds his intelligent son in disdain. Jack's older brother Stan follows in their father's violent footsteps, drinking, smoking pot, fighting and getting in trouble with the law. Needless to say, the Witcher family is not a popular one in the neighborhood.

Jack has a crush on beautiful Myra who responds to Jack's sweetness. But when Myra's brother, the high school football hero, goes missing, Stan is the prime suspect after having a fight with the boy. Once again, Jack's family has hurt him.

Mr. Gladstein is the owner of a local jewelry store and Jack's only friend. The man tries to help Jack woo Myra, and he is one of the few people in town who show Jack's plain mother any type of kindness or interest. Jack's father comes up with a plan to rob Mr. Gladstein, and Jack must thwart the plot without his father finding out.

Jack is a wonderful character, and watching him try to survive and thrive in a home where his intellect is stifled and mocked is difficult. His poor beaten-down mother does her best, but she is no match for her physically powerful husband and other son.

The book grabs you from the opening line:
"I'll never know for sure whether I'd have fought my brother or not. Maybe I might have killed him. The day came and I made the decision. But I will never know."
How can you resist reading on?

The author's take on the complexities of love and family intrigued me. Jack's mom explains why she married his dad this way:
"I knew he'd never get it in his head he was too good for me. He has an inferiority complex a mile wide. Most people can't see that, but I saw it right away." Jack "went to (his) room and meditated on the mysteries of women, deeper that all the philosophies of humankind put together."
On families, Jack thinks:
"Families live on loyalty more than love, and it wasn't fear that made me keep my mouth shut. I could never forget that Stan bled for me. And yet I was terrified of him."
If Jack's In Love is a book written for adults, but there is much here for teens to appreciate. Jack is an outsider, torn between his love for his mother, and yes even his father and brother, and his desire to have a different, better life. His feelings are no doubt shared by many adolescents, and this book would be a great one for high school English classes.
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Jul 30, 2012 Jean V. Naggar Literary rated it 5 of 5 stars

If Jack's In Love is a coming-of-age story with a bite. Your proto-typical coming-of-age story tells of a child who is a bit weird and perhaps not accepted by his/her peers or society at large, and throughout the story explores themes of growing up such as: loss of innocence, learning what kind of person you want to be, and eventually finding your place in the world. If Jack's In Love has elements of all these themes, but the execution is what makes this book insanely readable and fresh.

Jack Wi...more

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Jan 01, 2012 John Luiz rated it 5 of 5 stars

A powerful story of a bright, Southern 13-year-old boy dealing with the burdens of being a member of the pariah family in a middle-class Virginian town in the late 1960s. The story is well written, although a little slow in pacing, as young Jack pines over a girl who’s a member of one of the upper-crust families, while having to deal with both his unemployed dad, who wants to rob the jewelry store of a man who’s befriended Jack and with his violent older brother, who abuses and threatens the old...more

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Nov 24, 2011 Amy rated it 4 of 5 stars

If Jack’s in Love by Stephen Wetta is an unusual coming of age story that deserves wide readership. Set in the tumultuous summer of 1967 the novel examines ostracized family, focusing on its youngest member Jack Witcher. As the novel opens Jack’s father has lost yet another job, this time for fighting with one of his upstanding neighbors, Jack’s mother is forced to work herself to the bone to support her family, and Jack’s older hippie brother Stan is the prime suspect in the disappearance of th...more

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Nov 07, 2011 Rachel rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: fiction

This is really a 4.5 star review.

Twelve-year old Jack has the misfortune of belonging to the Witcher family – the lowest family on the totem pole in the small Virginia town where he lives. His father is frequently out of work, leaving his overworked mother to provide for the family. Jack’s older brother Stan is the town bully.

Jack’s world gets even worse when his brother is the primary suspect in the disappearance of the son of one of the pillars of the community. Jack happens to be in love with...more

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Oct 30, 2011 Margo Tanenbaum rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: historical-fiction, 1960s, young-adult, prejudices

This debut novel was identified by Amazon as a children's novel, but it's definitely more suitable for adults or perhaps teens. I didn't see it as a children's book at all. It's a coming of age story set in 1967 in a small town in Virginia. The story is told in the first person by the protagonist, Jack, who's a mature and brainy thirteen-year old. He's got a crush on Myra, a neighborhood girl who's out of his league, a mom who with a "face that belonged in a Dust Bowl documentary," and a dad who...more

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Feb 09, 2013 Athornton rated it 4 of 5 stars

Got this book from a friend as a recommendation. Definitely makes you think about small town ideas and opinions and how widespread they can be!

Interesting plot- the Witcher family lives in a town where they are considered white "trash" because the father has lost his most recent job and keeps collecting garbage outside their house. The older brother Stan becomes friends with Anya, the daughter of the new family that moves into town. The younger brother Jack has an unrequited love for Myra Joyner...more

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Feb 02, 2012 Maxx rated it 3 of 5 stars

Ok, first things first. I broke my bad language reading rule in reading this book. I didn't stop, and I really should have. For this reason, I won't recommend this book to anyone wanting to staying away from books with major f-bombs.

Second, I've never read a more interesting, forthwith author bio than the one on this book cover. It was surprising to read that the author, Stepen Wetta, was a high school drop out, did drugs, served time in prison, but ended up with a PhD and a published book amid...more

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Jun 14, 2012 Lori Anaple rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: 2012, best-ass-books-ever, coming-of-age

OK, so maybe it isn't on of the best ass books ever. And so what if this really is more of a 4.5 rather than a 5. It is the best thing I have read in a looooong time.

This book reminded me so much of childhood, how everything centers around your thoughts and feelings. How we could run and play and go anywhere as long as we were home by nightfall. Life was so different then *sigh*

The story is mainly about young Jack being involved with Myra and the feelings and actions that go into the relationshi...more

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Nov 23, 2011 Kelly rated it 3 of 5 stars

Our narrator,Jack, is a 12 year old member of a white trash family or so the rest of the "respectable" neighbors call the family. Unlike his sporadically employed father and hippyish 18 year old brother Jack is a smart boy. Jack also happens to be in love with the daughter, Myra, of one the more reputable neighbors. Sadly Jack's brother continually picks fights with Myra's older brother Gaylord and when he disappears it is wildly held that Jack's brother has killed him. However, before the disap...more

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Nov 17, 2011 Jasmine rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: american

I read books anytime their blurb mentions nick hornby... no joke

stephen wetta is the guy I hung out with in high school. that's a lie he's the white collar version of the guy I hung out with in high school, see the guy I hung out with is like the guy in his book except he got arrested for attempted murder not suspected of murder, and his victim (his father) refused to press charges (and i believe denied it had actually happened) so in the end they could only hold him on drug possession. wetta o...more I read books anytime their blurb mentions nick hornby... no joke

stephen wetta is the guy I hung out with in high school. that's a lie he's the white collar version of the guy I hung out with in high school, see the guy I hung out with is like the guy in his book except he got arrested for attempted murder not suspected of murder, and his victim (his father) refused to press charges (and i believe denied it had actually happened) so in the end they could only hold him on drug possession. wetta only managed tax evasion. mine wins :P. and that's one story of many the long version of that one is just the most fun. (Not to mention I had a guy who was mid/late twenties try to convince me (when I was 15 or 16) to date him because he had beaten up said friend in jail (boys are weird) the teen years are fun) the point being basically I understand the conceptual background this story is coming from. I mean yes it's set in the old days (sixties) but that's not that different from the current "backwoods" (I know in my case it was an island deal).

But let me clarify, My family was not white trash, my mother was very direct about this, this is IMPORTANT "white trash" is a mindset. My friend whose parents spent more on cigarettes a year than my mom made were white trash, my friend in high school whose mom was a lawyer was also considered white trash (I know mean right his mom was super nice too), my boyfriend in high school whose dad owned a tow truck company... well it depended who you asked, my uncle who live across the street from us when I was in the third grade. We were just "outsiders" my uncle "trash" he had a washer in his front yard for a while that made you part of the community and trash although where I'm from it wasn't scorned like in this book. I mean it was in other towns but being a "backsider" sort of equated if you were from a "frontside" town, especially southwest they were all poorly thought of, it almost makes you feel bad. I don't know maybe being trash in a rich town was more of a big deal than in a town where everyone had lobster traps in their front yard.

basically though I grew up as a spectator in this book. I saw the drugs, the murder, the harassment, but I wasn't any of the main players.

I think one of the interesting things about this book is the sides the family is on pop and stan are trash, mom and jack are clearly not but as long as they are a unit it's like when the salad dressing attacks the burger all of it is untouchable. This isn't really about the murder it's about the town and it's about how small towns and families interact. When I started high school I was given the Principal as my adviser because I was seen as a "PROBLEM STUDENT" because I had an older brother, less than 50% of my advising group graduated by senior year only like 4 of 10 were still enrolled we had the worst stats of any group. I also got out of almost everything I had to do to graduate by not being the problem people expected me to be, but how I slept through physics is another story for another book. The fact is what we see in this book it's real and it's awkward and this book captures it well, I'm just not sure if it's actually something that interests people and there appear to be some glaring spelling errors... just saying.(less)

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Apr 04, 2011 Valerie Millan rated it 5 of 5 stars

Every so often a reader comes across a book that changes them forever. It alters their lives so that they are just a little bit different after reading that book, and it is bound to become one of their life long favorites.

Today, this book was added to that list for me.

Stephen Wetta's debut novel about a boy growing up in the tumultuous South during the sixties is not only touching, but an experience for anyone reading it who's ever been thirteen and confused about who they are. Jack Witcher does...more Every so often a reader comes across a book that changes them forever. It alters their lives so that they are just a little bit different after reading that book, and it is bound to become one of their life long favorites.

Today, this book was added to that list for me.

Stephen Wetta's debut novel about a boy growing up in the tumultuous South during the sixties is not only touching, but an experience for anyone reading it who's ever been thirteen and confused about who they are. Jack Witcher doesn't know how to deal with the fact that his brother may be a murderer, that the whole neighborhood and thinks his family is trash, and that he has just fallen in love for the first time with a girl named Myra (oh, and she just happens to be the sister of the boy his brother may have murdered).

The novel touches on many issues. First of all, Jack is forced to deal with loss of innocence. Like anyone at that age, he has begun to see the world as it truly is, and that the world is not all good. He begins to understand that he will always be looked down upon in his neighborhood because his father isn't an educated man. He doesn't have a steady job. His mother is a quiet woman. And his brother has been a bully since his days in kindergarten. The neighbors will never think well of him, but Jack wonders if this is fair. He isn't like his father, his mother or his brother. He's smart and courteous, but he'll forever be known as one of the Witcher boys because of blood relation alone.

Not that being a Witcher is necessarily a bad thing. Wetta raises the question of whether or not the Witchers really are the trash that the neighborhood thinks them to be, or if they are just a product of the society they've been put in. If they weren't so looked down upon, would Stan Witcher be such a bully? Would Jack Witcher have to fight to date Myra, a girl far above his social station? Would Mr. Witcher be able to control his temper and keep a steady job if the world wasn't already setting him up to fail? There are so many questions to be answered, and it leaves the reader wondering who should be looking down upon who. Social status doesn't determine the goodness in people, and Wetta makes that very clear.

And what about race? Does that determine the goodness in people? Are all the white folks good and the blacks living in the next neighborhood over bad? The Witchers aren't a racist family, but is it a coincidence that when Mr. Witcher is contemplating robbing a jewelry store that he enlists the help of a black man? Is it okay that Mr. Pudding, an accepted and well liked member of the community is a member of the KKK? When you get past the realizations about social status, you realize the same truth applies to race. People shy away from Mr. Gladstein because he's Jewish, but he's one of the more lovable characters in the book. Snead is a nice enough guy, but because he is black he is of course looked down upon by everyone. Jack has to learn to see past race here too, realizing he can't change the minds of everyone but that he doesn't have to be a racist himself.

And what about first love? In a somewhat Romeo & Juliet-esque story, Jack falls in love with Myra Joyner, a girl who he couldn't possibly be with but wins over because he is really just as good as she is, no matter what anyone in the neighborhood might think. But is there really a way to be together when you are so young and so many obstacles stand in your way?

I could go on and on, but to sum up, this is an absolutely fantastic debut for the author and I look forward to the possibility of more work from him in the future.(less)

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May 13, 2012 Trish rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: fiction, funny, quirky, totally-unexpected, teen

Wetta has written that rare novel that can truly be called a “crossover,” in the sense that it speaks to adults just as it speaks to teens. It raises questions that are not really resolved, and speaks to the nature of fiction itself. If we change just one thing in one’s life, does that make all the rest a fiction?

Jack presents us with two alternate histories: one in which his brother is transgresser, and one in which his brother is transgressed upon. In the first history, his father is a rough a...more Wetta has written that rare novel that can truly be called a “crossover,” in the sense that it speaks to adults just as it speaks to teens. It raises questions that are not really resolved, and speaks to the nature of fiction itself. If we change just one thing in one’s life, does that make all the rest a fiction?

Jack presents us with two alternate histories: one in which his brother is transgresser, and one in which his brother is transgressed upon. In the first history, his father is a rough and a cad, while in the second, he is vulnerable yet protective of his sons. The fact that alternative histories are presented tells us something about Jack’s ambivalence, though one of the histories lay on the cutting room floor at the end of the novel.

I remember those days of childhood when one begins to perceive the outlines of “truth;” when another person’s truth is not precisely as we ourselves have observed it to be. We begin to suspect those others; we begin to suspect ourselves.

This is a book, I guess, about love. But it seems more a book about a family (“Families live on loyalty more than love…”), or perhaps just a young boy: a young boy just discerning the truth about people, about his family, about his neighborhood, about black people and Jewish people, about policemen and villains.

It is a story of a stiff-spined boy who grew into a stiff-spined man. He claims to have had a brother and father who taught him forgiveness could be weakness. He was saved by his mother, a kind woman, though she recognized some failing in him: “You’ll be a lot harder than your father or brother ever were. You’ll never do anything wrong, not you. But my God you’re going to be hard.” Jack may have thought that was a good thing—a carapace of steel should save him from the vagaries of love and loyalty.

Jack Witcher begins his story when he is thirteen and “already tragic.” Exceptionally imaginative, he has a hard time sorting truth from fiction, and creates an alternate universe in which the haunting experience of finding a corpse in the woods merges with the perfectly normal wish for an older brother to get his come-uppance and his parents’ divorce explained. “Maybe I might have killed him.” Jack is uncertain exactly how to deal with an unruly older brother, but one thing is clear. He’ll create a story in which that brother is dealt with severely. How much is truth and how much is fiction? That is where we will differ.

Sometimes when I am confused about something, my head feels filled with white noise; Jack’s confusion produces a cacophony and Wetta captures the mind-buzz perfectly:

”I started thinking about the hot shack and the pissy mattress and the cicadas. I saw myself lying in all that stink with a knife in my chest. Meanwhile the gnats and the mosquitoes and the bees and the flies and the wasps kept buzzing. Add to that the airplanes and the jet fighters leaving vapor trails and the helicopters and the lawn mowers on Lewis Street and the vacuum cleaners and the other appliances and the fans and the air conditioners and the traffic north on Cherokee and the traffic south on Matson and the trains on the tracks beside the river and the chemical and pharmaceutical plants next to the interstate pumping pollution into the air and the barking of neighborhood dogs and the frogs croaking along the banks of the creek and the snapping and buzzing from the satellites circling the earth and the cicadas in my mind that never stopped singing." (p. 298<.i>)

This may be a good book to carry on the family vacation this summer. It has clever observances that make us laugh out loud, it raises social issues, and it plays with our sense of reality. It might make for good conversation around the campfire or dinner table.
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Nov 09, 2011 Brian rated it 5 of 5 stars

I really liked this novel. The main theme of this story is that you can't choose your family. Jack is a Witcher, a family known for being trashy. His dad is unemployed and likes to cause fights, his mom is "sweet but ugly" and his brother is a hippie who also has a volatile personality. When a local teen is murdered, Stan, Jack's brother is the main suspect. The book is part murder mystery, part character study. The characters are well fleshed out and memorable, from the jeweler Gladstein, to th...more

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Aug 12, 2011 Krystal rated it 4 of 5 stars

Jack, the main character, guides the reader through this thought-provoking novel. He is sincerely sweet and only 12 years old. He thinks he is in love with Myra, a girl whose brother disappears-Jack's brother is the main suspect. Jack doesn't really know what to make of this. He handles it in a mature way for a 12 year old. No one in their small town has a particularly high opinion of Jack's family as it is, making it all the harder on Jack.

This novel is fast-paced, the events are surprising and...more

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May 20, 2012 Pamela Cable rated it 5 of 5 stars

A quirky young boy in a disfunctional family falls in love. We've seen it done before, but this book pulls at your heart strings in a different way. We all remember what it was like growing up and trying to fit in. Poor Jack doesn't have a chance. His father can't hold a job, his older brother is the town hood, his mother is ugly, and they live in the worst house on the block. The one where the neighborhood dogs hang out. The one the other kids make fun of and paint the word TRASH across the fro...more

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Mar 27, 2012 Liz rated it 5 of 5 stars

"If Jack's In Love" is a beautiful and captivating story. Wetta paints a detailed portrait of a southern town in the late '60s, rife with tensions over class and race. He throws his young protagonist into a heartbreakingly dysfunctional working class family that is shunned by the entire neighborhood for their poorly-kept property and penchant for starting fights. Thirteen year-old Jack's narration is a perfect blend of precocious and naive--he deals with the chaos around him with staggering matu...more

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Jun 27, 2011 Jennie rated it 5 of 5 stars Recommends it for: Fans of Nick Hornby

Shelves: drama, fiction, humor, literary-fiction, new-classic, satire, romance

I didn't expect to like this as much as I did, honestly. I picked it up because the premise sounded semi-interesting, but I wasn't expecting much. I was had. Wetta's compelling prose hooked me by the end of the first couple of chapters, and by that time, it was a race to the finish two days later.

I give it 5 stars. Wetta's characters are unbelievably raw and real, he breathes life into the nuances of the individuals -- never stereotypes -- of the people populating his insular small town in the m...more

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Feb 06, 2012 Victoria rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: child-narrator, young-adult

At first, I loved this coming-of-age tale. The narrative style and characters instantly drew me in, and for the majority of the book, I was having a great time reading it! Unfortunately, by the end it all more or less fell apart. The resolution did not match the build-up and the characters became less and less believable. Wetta did manage to create a lot of sympathy for the for the Witchers, but unfortunately, he did not do much to show just why they were so ostracized. By the end, neither the m...more

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Sep 05, 2011 Alice Tasman rated it 5 of 5 stars

I adore everything about this novel. Stephen Wetta's narrative is so full of energy and captures perfectly Jack's perspective: his irresistible voice (adorable in the way that 13 yr old boys would be mortified to know that they are), his teenage yearnings, angst, and confusion. And El Dorado Hills is beautifully drawn as a southern community confronting not only the typical clashes of the late 60s, but also a murder that threatens to destroy it. That the story is also compelling, full of hope, h...more

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Feb 28, 2012 Jacquelynn Fritz rated it 4 of 5 stars

Jack Witcher is in love with Myra Joyner. There are problems. One is Jack is part of the Witcher family who lives in a rundown house with junk in the yard and a father who doesn't work and Myra is from suburbia royalty. Two, his brother Stan hates her brother Gaylord. With the help of Mr. Gladstein, the Jewish jeweler, he wins her as his girlfriend. Then Gaylord goes missing and Stan is suspected of being involved. The book is both a love story and a mystery with a look at the changing 1960s. Ja...more

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Sep 24, 2011 Yvonne rated it 4 of 5 stars

Okay, this book had me at the author's biography. A man sober against his will with a Ph.D. and jailed for tax evasion who wrote his first novel. That's my kind of author; he must have some real world insight that seeps into his writing...

If Jack's In Love was a great read. I loved hearing the voice of the story from a 12 year-old boy's perspective. He was real and honest in his perception of an utterly disfunctional family. And I mean disfunctional with a capital D. Dad watches soap operas all...more

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May 06, 2012 Chris rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: fiction

The author's flippant and self-deprecating bio on the dust jacket of the book hooked me. This book was suggested to me by a reader at our library. It's a coming of age story set in the Richmond, VA suburbs of the 1960's. The author is a year older than me and I grew up 100 miles north in the DC suburbs. So those factors also clicked in my selection. It's great writing and you're immediately hooked by this humorously and darkly told tale of first love and family violence. I read it in less than a...more

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Aug 27, 2011 Krysta rated it 4 of 5 stars

I was a Goodreads First Reads winner. The story was a coming of age tale that entranced me by way of the voice of Jack that carries through the book as both guide and source of emotion. Everything the reader needs is gained through Jack.. wisdom, assessments, and most of all the feelings that come with being part of the community outcasted family. The book carries on at a gentle pace that allows the reader to take in Jack's views and what is going on while gathering their own thoughts and opinio...more

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Sep 26, 2011 J.D. rated it 4 of 5 stars

This was an extremely enjoyable book that read very quickly. The Witcher family was very different from the family I grew up with and yet there was the ability to understand Jack's character and sympathize with him. Although this book may not make top lists for the year, it's very hard to deny a well-written story that engages you throughout. I can honestly say that I read this faster than I do other books because I truly wanted to know what was going to come of Jack and his family. Kudos to an...more

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May 01, 2013 Catherine rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: 2013, coming-of-age, dysfunctional-family, small-town

Twelve-year-old Jack is a Witcher. His family is at the bottom of the social ladder in their 1960s Virginia neighborhood. Their yard is full of junk, his dad is often unemployed, his mother is homely, and his older brother is a delinquent. In other words, they're "white trash," barely above the sole colored family on the edge of the neighborhood. Even though Jack is a straight A student and an all-around good kid, only one pudgy neighborhood kid will hang out with him. When Myra Joyner, the smar...more Twelve-year-old Jack is a Witcher. His family is at the bottom of the social ladder in their 1960s Virginia neighborhood. Their yard is full of junk, his dad is often unemployed, his mother is homely, and his older brother is a delinquent. In other words, they're "white trash," barely above the sole colored family on the edge of the neighborhood. Even though Jack is a straight A student and an all-around good kid, only one pudgy neighborhood kid will hang out with him. When Myra Joyner, the smartest girl in his grade, starts paying attention to him, of course Jack falls in love instantly. Unfortunately, Myra's brother and Jack's brother are sworn enemies, and when Myra's brother disappears, Jack's brother is the logical suspect.

The Romeo and Juliet parallels are obvious, with the Witcher and Joyner clans having several confrontations. Instead of Friar Lawrence, Jack is counseled by an obese Jewish jeweler (who was a little too creepy for me at points). But this story was so much more than that. Jack doesn't seem to fit in anywhere. His father and brother expect him to act like a Witcher, which means fighting and keeping their secrets no matter how illegal or immoral, because "Witchers ain't snitchers." The rest of the neighborhood lumps him in with his family, even when he follows all the rules of conventional society.

Wetta brings both Jack and the setting to life. I felt Jack's struggle, fear, and frustration. I felt the 1960s muggy summer heat and the racial tension. The writing often reads more like a college professor (which Wetta is) than a teenage boy, but Jack is telling the story from some unknown point in the future, so he very well could have become a professor himself. One example of this language is his repeated reference to the sagging family sofa as "carmine," never red or even dark red, but always carmine. As odd as it occasionally sounds, it's the vivid professorial description that really brings the story to life. The dialogue is much more earthy and entirely believable for the characters.

This ended up being an interesting companion piece to The Death of Bees, which I read just before IJiL. Both focus on outsiders coming of age, but are clearly intended for adults. (IJiL has language and violence that some parents may find objectionable, but isn't as gritty as DoB. Jack is much more sheltered than DoB's Marnie, partially because his family isn't nearly as depraved as hers, and partially because he's more the counterpart of Nelly. If Jack's older brother, Stan, had a voice in this novel, it would be a much nastier novel.) Both question the meaning and importance of family bonds. Both start slowly and end a little too conveniently. And both are fantastic reads. (less)

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Jan 05, 2013 Nicole Gervasio rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: contemporary-american-fiction

It's rare that I get the chance to read a really good book about the stigma attached to white poverty, in the South or anywhere else. Jack, the young narrator, is endearing. His snark is charming, and his high level of awareness of the complicated psychologies of the people around him is enlightening.

I also really appreciated the ambiguity of the who-done-it plot that occupies the majority of the novel; we never actually find out who definitely committed the murder, but we are coaxed into belie...more

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Aug 01, 2012 Lorine Kritzer rated it 3 of 5 stars

"I think I belonged to the last generation of kids that could play outside...My father was unemployed and my mother was known for being ugly. Kids in the neighborhood spat my name rather than said it. They didn't even grant me thecompliment of a rude nickname."
So begins Chapter 1 of this moving story about a twelve year old boy genius whose family is
considered white trash by the community in 1967 suburban Virginia. Jack's difficult situation is compounded when his older brother is accused of...more

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title link	preview: If Jack's in Love
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If Jack's in Love

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