Deadline

by Chris Crutcher

How can a pint-sized, smart-ass eighteen-year-old make his mark on the world from Nowheresville, Idaho—especially when he only has one year left to do it? When Ben Wolf learns his senior year of high school will be his last year, period, he is determined to go out in a blaze of glory. That means not letting anyone know about his diagnosis. It means trying out for the football team. It means giving his close-minded civics teacher a daily migraine. It means going for the amazingly perfect, fascinating Dallas Suzuki. But living with a secret isn't easy . . . What will Ben do when he realizes he isn't the only person who's keeping one?

Genres: Young Adult, Fiction, Realistic Fiction, Sports, Teen, Death, Contemporary

336 pages, Paperback

First published September 1, 2007

About the author

Chris Crutcher's writing is controversial, and has been frequently challenged and even banned by individuals who want to censor his books by removing them from libraries and classrooms. Running Loose and Athletic Shorts were on the ALA's top 100 list of most frequently challenged books for 1990-2000. His books generally feature teens coping with serious problems, including abusive parents, racial and religious prejudice, mental and physical disability, and poverty; these themes are viewed as too mature for children. Other cited reasons for censorship include strong language and depictions of homosexuality. Despite this controversy, Crutcher's writing has received many awards.

Reviews

[Maja (The Nocturnal Library) · Rating 3 out of 5]

2.5 stars
An 18-year-old boy with big plans for his life finds out that he only has a year to live. He decides to refuse treatment and to keep his diagnosis a secret. Instead of telling his family the truth, he is determined to make the most of the time he has left. He joins the football team, even though he is extremely short, and he finally gathers the courage to approach the girl he’s been admiring from afar for as long as he can remember.

Deadline is actually a pretty decent story. Despite its many flaws, I got pretty attached to some of the characters and I found myself really caring about Ben in the second half. But the truth is that I expected it to be much deeper than it actually was. Chris Crutcher made a few huge mistakes for reasons I can’t even begin to understand and, in my opinion, made a mess of something that could easily have been a very successful novel.

I have issues with authors who use their work to advertise their political beliefs. This is the second time I’ve come across such a problem lately, and both times my reading enjoyment was diminished significantly. Not being able to separate a book from its author is only natural, no matter who claims otherwise, but relying on experience and turning your novel into a political pamphlet are two very different things. The first usually ends very well. The second makes me… slightly uncomfortable.
Every time Crutcher mentioned a book Ben was reading, I felt like he was shoving it down my throat. It was almost like he was giving me a reading assignment and at the same time, telling me that I should be ashamed of myself for not reading it sooner. Since they were all books about politics, something I’m not even remotely interested in, I didn’t appreciate it at all.

My second issue with Deadline is that it’s clearly a book for teenage boys. A big part of the book is about football, and it’s written in such a way that only people who know a lot about it can understand. Having just recently read Dairy Queen, which is also a book about football, albeit a perfectly understandable one even to someone as clueless as I am, I have to say that Chris Crutcher didn’t handle that very well. Whenever Ben played a game of talked about football strategies, I was completely and utterly lost and I ended up just skipping those parts altogether.

So here’s the verdict: if you don’t think about it too hard, Deadline is a pretty fun read. It obviously has some major flaws and you need to be a football fan to fully appreciate it, but it’s also full of unexpected twists and turns, with quite a few hilarious moments and completely lovable characters.

[Marya · Rating 2 out of 5]

If you want a great teen book about football and male camaraderie, read "The Knights of the Hill Country".

If you want a great teen book about dying, read "Before I Die".

If you want an OK teen book that tries to connect football and dying in trite statements like those you'd see on inspirational store fridge magnets, read this book.

[Agatha Donkar Lund · Rating 5 out of 5]

I don't even know what to write in a review of this -- anything I could say about how much it moved me, how utterly perfect it was, would give away the ending and the power of the book. Regardless: this one kept me up until almost 3 a.m. on Friday because I just couldn't stop turning the pages. Crutcher's a great writer, the style's fantastic, and the narrator is unlike any narrator I've ever met before (though he may strike some readers as a bit of a Gary Stu; I honestly didn't mind his perfection because I adored him so much). One of the best new titles I've read in 2007, hands down.

[Amina · Rating 3 out of 5]

✰ 3.25 stars ✰

“... you discovered sometime toward the end of summer that you have a terminal illness, had the presence of mind—if we want to call it that—to keep the doctor from telling anyone, turned out for football, and started hustling the sharpest girl in school?”

That pretty much sums up 18yo Ben Wolf's approach to life, once he's been told he's living on a Deadline. And while I’m all for it's my life, I can do as I please, choose how to live it, who all to tell, I think the very vagueness of the approach to his aggressive illness was rather callous, let alone how he used the plea as a legal adult as a factor to strong arm his doctor into a vow of silence. It was unsettling. 🤨

From a cross-country stud to an unlikely missile on the football field for Coach Banks, a second father, observant towards his parents' unusual marriage due to his mother's unpredictable mood swings, loves and adores his younger brother, Cody, quarterback tour de force, and the smart-talker pain-in-the-butt Malcolm X referendum guy in Mr. Lameer's American History class, Ben was determined to leave his mark in his senior year. 🫡

There's only so much his heart-to-heart with the voice in his heart that can help him on his journey of ‘Live every day like you’re going to live forever and every day like it’s going to be your last.’ 🥺 Add on his short-lived relationship with volleyball sensation, Dallas Suzuki, the focus of my lust and my undying love flaws and all, and his attempted rehabilitation of Rudy, the town drunkard of Trout, Idaho, population 943, who has his own demons and sorrows he wishes to drown.

“If you play the game the best you can, you have the best chance of others seeing a piece of what you see.”

Yet, with the whirlwind of truths that followed in the wake of his own life-altering revelation, strangely, there never came a moment when I felt sorry for Ben's casual disregard of his death, even when his motives were good. Not once. 😐 Maybe, because he was treating it so casually and dismissively, I never felt that full brunt of loss. Even when he finally realized that time was running short and confessed the truth to his close ones - their reactions were so numbed and stilted that my own reaction was toned down, without any believable emotion. 🙍🏻‍♀️

I’m even conflicted about the inclusion of some other unfortunate twists towards the end; it --- for all that Ben was hoping to do before his days were numbered, I’m glad he got to live the days of glory the way he wanted, but --- I never cared enough for how and he was so determined to bring about change - when he, himself, had nothing much to lose. 😕

“It’s all in good works, my man. It’s about influence, about what people do in your name after you’re gone.”

Chris Crutcher has good intentions; I really don't question or doubt it. But I think he tried a little too hard to cram so much into one setting that the effect is lost in the shuffle. 🥴 And it pains me that despite his desire to have tolerance and acceptance and change taught to teens, sadly, it has shown very little progress in the almost twenty years since this novel was published. 😔

By the end, I was more annoyed than moved, relieved it was finally over, since it took me much longer to read than the norm. 😮‍💨 However, a part of me does appreciate the message it aimed to convey - the importance of telling the truth, a powerful weapon, for how it gives you the chance to finally breathe and simply be. Free of the burden and shame and guilt that has shackled you - it frees you. ❤️‍🩹🙏🏻

[Patrick · Rating 4 out of 5]

The good news is this is a great novel about life, death, and the truth that lies in between. The voice of Ben is very strong: smart, sarcastic, and always searching for truth. The story itself is just fine as well with all the elements one expects in a Crutcher novel: the not quite perfect romance, the sports angle, the distant slightly tortured parents, the helpful if overmatched therapist, and the school based subplot with good guy hero standing up against bad guy teacher. Ben's journey is that of every teen about belonging , asking big questions, and finding the answers are never clear even if you have coaches, brothers, friends, or lovers. Ben's death comes suddenly after so much of the shows his life, and yet even though you know exactly what's going to happen, it is heartbreaking: the image of Ben resting his head on his girl and saying it's better than sex, well, that's just about perfect and tear inducing.

Now, the bad news. There's a bumpy flaw to the epilogue: the book's been told in Ben's voice, but he's dead, so it just feels disjointed even if the bulk of the final chapter is a letter. There's a lot of death in this small town of Trout, and the sudden demise of one character in an auto accident is jarring, not in a good way. Throughout Ben, and some of the other characters, break out into speeches that while you cheer them because they say the "right things", it is sometimes just too much, and is the dialogue with Hey Soos. Minor points, but worth noting.

Finally, the good news and bad news combined. This reads like Crutcher mix tape. He even brings back characters from Running Loose (Boomer and Louie), and Dallas could have dropped out of Chinese Handcuffs. The side characters -- parents, brothers, friends, enemies, - we've seen most of them before in previous books. Not that any of this is a bad thing. It is a enjoyable and emotional read because Crutcher knows exactly what buttons to push with readers, both teen and adults. If it was a concert, I'd be flicking my lighter after the last chapter knowing I've seen one of my favorites, and damn my writing role models, kick out a great set not loaded with lots of new material (save the premise) but instead playing those great riffs we've come to love.

[Stacy · Rating 1 out of 5]

this would have been a pretty good book except for 2 things:

1) LANGUAGE PROBLEMS on every page---f bombs everywhere
2) Political smears from the left---throughout the book

DON'T WASTE YOUR TIME

[Kathryn · Rating 5 out of 5]

About once a year I find a book that makes me cry at the beginning and again at the end and changes my life somewhere in between. Last year that book was Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson, the year before it was Louis Sachar's Small Steps, and the year before that it was Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants by Ann Brashares. But now, at the tale end of this year, I can tell you that Deadline has changed the way I look at life, given me hope for the future and made me a better person, all within 316 pages.

If the cover of the book doesn't get you hooked--a sky so vividly blue it makes your heart ache and type placement that makes you wonder if you holding the book upside-down--Deadline will turn your life upside-down. And that's no joke.

Ben Wolf knows exactly what he wants from life. He wants to join the football team despite his miniscule size. He wants to teach his civics teacher a lesson in acceptance. He wants to clean up the town drunk, get the girl of his dreams to see past his size, heal his mother's manic depression, all in the year he has left after being diagnosed with a terminal, aggressive blood disease. And he wants to keep it all to himself.

What Ben doesn't know is what he wants for himself. He has spent eighteen years holding everyone around him together, so now he doesn't know how to hold himself together.

This is a beautifully written story with full characters and imagery that will transport you to the tiny town of Trout, Idaho. I know it sounds sappy, but it really did touch my heart. Chris Crutcher is a master and bringing humanity to written words.

[M]

Maybe its my having spent too much time in the classroom, or maybe it's because Back in My Day teens were slapped for this sort of thing, but my threshold of tolerance for Obnoxious Teens is really, really low. There is a thin yet very much there line between charming and smart mouth. The narrator here is a guy who is diagnosed with an unnamed because who cares disease and will die within the year. He snot nosedly tells off the doctor who is begging this incredibly annoying boy to get treatment, he tells off his therapist who - sniff - finds it TOO PAINFUL to talk to Mr Heroic who laughs in the face of death. He manages to befriend and save the local drunk. He manages to somehow get the girl of his dreams to fall for him (this was perhaps the most unrealistic in this hyper color world).
I hated EVERYTHING. I hated the Jonathan Tropper at eighteen style whereby everyone has snappy lines and is wholly unrealistic, and where the snot nosed hero is, in fact, a hero, instead of the loser kid he clearly would be in real life. I also hated that said hero is like three feet tall. It made everything all the stranger, including his eleven foot girl friend. I hated his having a bi polar mom to further his heroism. The only thing I did not mind was his dying. Couldn't have happened fast enough.

[Amy · Rating 2 out of 5]

Okay, I don't know what's wrong with me, but I really, really didn't like this book. It's about a high school senior who finds out he's dying and decides not to tell anyone. It's so far out of my realm of possibilities that I just read it to see if Crutcher could convince me of it's plausibility. He didn't. The dude's voice really irked me too. I think the author went too far with the perfectly blended confident-clever-smart-athletic-but still humble character he always writes. Anyone care to argue?

[Thomas · Rating 3 out of 5]

Ben Wolf is used to being out of the limelight. He is dwarf-sized and constantly overshadowed by his younger brother Cody, who is also the school football team's quarterback. Not that he really minds, because as brothers they have always been tight. He also has a crazy, possibly bipolar, mom whose ups and downs always affect him more than he would like. Couple that up with a very strict, by the book Civics teacher and an impossibly beautiful Dallas Suzuki, his senior year should be one heck of a ride. However, late in the summer, Ben goes to take a physical for his upcoming cross country season. There, he is diagnosed with a terminal blood disease and learns that he has one year or less to live. That's when Ben makes the decision not to reveal his knowledge of the disease to anyone, even his family, and swears his doctor into confidentiality. Instead of wasting his senior year laying in bed bald Ben decides to go out with a bang, and the first thing on his list is to try out for football.

Deadline was so, so close to getting four stars. At first I rated it four stars, then I knocked it down to three. One of the reasons why is because I thought Ben's decision not to receive treatment for his disease was rather hasty, and the author could have explained it better. Also, while the end almost had me in tears, the rest of the book didn't deliver the emotional impact I was looking for. The writing was good but not extraordinary.

I liked a lot of things about Deadline, though. I can tell that a lot of guys would read this book because of the huge football scenes. Also, the plot was original and humorous but also sincere from Ben's point of view. As I said previously the end almost had me in tears, it was sort of like the whole book coming together. My favorite thing about Deadline was the relationship between Ben and Cody, Crutcher wrote the dialogue realistically and confidently, and it made me think about my own brother. In all it's entirety I think Deadline earns somewhere between a 3.5 to 3.8, but not a 4.

[Emily · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was a really good book. I liked Ben as a character. His personality and smart remarks make the book what it is. The ending was really sad, but also happy. Even though Ben died, he got his Malcolm X Avenue and people remembered him how he wanted them to. I think this is one of my new favorites.

[Sam · Rating 4 out of 5]

I wanted to make sure that I read this book after the brouhaha around it and Crutcher's heated response on his MySpace page. It seemed like a good selection to get around to for Banned Books Week, and it didn't let me down.

Deadline features the story of Ben Wolf, a young man on the brink of high school graduation who is diagnosed with a terminal illness (never specified, just identified as a blood disease) during a physical for cross country the summer before his senior year. After finding out that there was little chance of living a good life even after aggressive treatment, Ben decides to just make the best last year he can. Moreover, as an 18 year old he decides to skip treatment and not tell anyone that he's terminal. He ditches cross-country for football, where his younger but much larger brother is the local star. In short order, Ben shocks his small school and town by becoming a football powerhouse. He also decides to persue a romance with the beautiful but mysterious Dallas Suzuki and help get the town drunk clean. With little to no outside support (save a mythical dream being called Hey-Soos who counsels him in his sleep), it seems like Ben is really going to pull of his greatest year. However, the weight of the world soon comes crashing in on him as he gets closer to people he never had the time to know and they reveal their deepest secrets to him. Ben soon realizes that although he is going to go out, it isn't fair for him to leave behind so many people without warning.

I do understand where the controversey comes from. Crutcher is fairly liberal in both his language and his general political leanings, and there is no hiding that in this book. However, the voice is authentic, the message is solid and meaningful, and it really holds your interest. In the end, the content is some of the least controversial I've seen on a banned books list. Although Ben spends the year tormenting a closed-minded teacher about Malcolm X, and of course some very religious people will object to Hey-Soos (though he really is a likable, wholesome, honest, and pure character, much as I personally would objectify Jesus in a modern light), overall this book is just an interesting read about someone who makes the decision to die instead of suffer. I think any 14+ year old will be able to digest this and get the real message.

[Jordan · Rating 3 out of 5]

Things I liked about this book:

The writing
The story

Why didn’t I give this book a higher rating? It was about a guy dying, but I didn’t cry at all. I didn’t feel connected to the characters or the situation enough to feel that high-stakes emotion.

[Jojo · Rating 2 out of 5]

Chris Crutcher is usually good, and this one is ok, but I think he tried to do way too much here and ended up with width, not depth. Let's see: fatal blood disease, alcoholism, mental illness, rampant sexual abuse, physical abuse, teen parenting, bad bad parenting, brotherly rivalry, racism, car accidents, hidden pasts of all kinds, "lies my teacher told me" - is there anything I missed?* My head is spinning from all of the big issues Chris Crutcher tries to cover here. I get that his main point is "we all have secrets" but wow...if he had just touched upon one or two of these things, and done it with more character development, it would have been so much better and so teachable. And I get it, the kid is short, but that's not a personality trait and it doesn't need to be mentioned on every page. I won't even get into the ending, which is soooooo contrived. Ok for the classroom library, but not worth adding to the curriculum.

*I missed the Jesus dreams and the sex. Oh Lord.

[Nicole · Rating 1 out of 5]

Very possibly the worst YA book I have ever read. I have no idea what Crutcher was trying to do with this. So much going on that it was simply ridiculous. We have teenage terminal illness, sexual abuse, teen pregnancy, mental illness, suicide, and lots of death. Oh, and let’s not forget about the local drunk pedophile. And it’s all presented in a supposed funny and sardonic style with lots of football thrown in. Truly awful in every way.

[Melissapalmer404 · Rating 5 out of 5]

Book #100 Read in 2017
Deadline by Chris Crutcher

This is actually a re-read for me; I read it years ago when it first came out. It will be our next class read in my Young Adult Literature class. Ben, a senior, finds out that he has an aggressive terminal illness. He decides to forgo treatment in order to have a "normal" senior year. He also decides to keep news of illness to himself. This proves problematic as he develops new friendships and he realizes he has to let his friends and family know. While the topic is heavy, this book is filled with a humor, and a philosophy on life, that will appeal to high school and adult readers alike.

[Cornmaven · Rating 3 out of 5]

I was really disappointed with this book, considering how much I liked The Sledding Hill. I think Crutcher tried to do too much in this book, and couldn't decide what he wanted to emphasize the most. Plot of kid who turns 18 then finds out he has a terminal illness and then refuses treatment and keeps it all secret so he can live a 'normal' life was interesting. I liked the scenes which had him challenging the smarmy history/government teacher; those seemed very real. But having the kid's mother be manic-depressive, having the kid develop a relationship with a child molester, having the kid partake in numerous conversations with an alter ego called Hey Soos, and having the kid go out for football his last year, all in the same book, seemed a bit much. I think that choice didn't allow the voices of the stable adults in his life (his father and his coach) to come through well enough, at least for me. I didn't buy that he wouldn't tell his brother, considering how close they were all their lives because of their mother's illness. I have familial experience with this and I think he would have confided in his brother. I especially didn't like Crutcher's discussion about moral relativism - is he REALLY saying that the nearly ubiquitous societal taboo toward incest is relative? It's an interesting point to discuss, but I don't think it worked at all in this book. I also did not like the whole thing with the ex-priest/child molester; if the kid is so taking charge of his life,and building a legacy, why did he not get the guy some help and try to prevent the guy from committing suicide? The suicide itself was handled too cavalierly as well, IMHO. The end wrapped up too SWEETLY for my taste. I thought his letter read at the end to the HS assembly was fake. I would have much rather had Crutcher describe more things like the cardboard Malcolm X Drive sign that occurred post mortem which signified the kid's legacy/impression on the town and the world. He makes a statement of universal connectivity, but then doesn't SHOW it.
Crutcher was all over the map with this one, and that really downgraded the impact of the book. My two cents.

[Janie Johnson · Rating 3 out of 5]

I decided to read this book for the TBRTakedown 2.0 read-a-thon for the challenge of 'Choose a book that has been on your shelves for over a year. Well try 3 years. I figured this would be a good one to choose for the challenge.

In this story you have 18 year old Ben wolf who finds out he has a year to live. He makes the decision to not have treatments just to get a little more time. He would rather live a great life for a year than to be sick from chemo treatments. The worst part of it, he does not tell anyone and bares this burden alone until he figures out he needs to learn to trust in people.

I really enjoyed the plotline of this book. For the most part it was an easy read and it kind of read like a memoir and that is ok, but I found that it was rather slow in some parts and did not pick up till the last 100 pages or so. So it did drag a bit for me, but when it did pick up it became very thought provoking. Like what would you do if you were told that you had a year to live? What would you do, or where would you go? Would you strive to help people, live on the edge, or not change anything at all?

The characters were ok. I did not find them to be particularly relatable but some of them were pretty likable. I did like the main character, Ben quite a lot and what he stood for. He made a lot of great points in the story and really was the thinker. There really was not any 'bad guys' in the story and I think that made the story a little less interesting. I like to have a mix between the two. Overall it was pretty good, but more towards the end of the book.

[Meredith · Rating 3 out of 5]

I would have given this book a better rating, but there were two things that bothered me:

1) I did not understand any of the football lingo at all. Now, that doesn't really mean too much coming from me, since my knowledge of football is on the same level as my knowledge of advanced calculus, but I had to skim over dozens of pages because I had no idea what was going on.

2) While I respect the right of the patient, I was really bothered by the main character's reasons for refusing medical treatment. He chooses not to opt for treatment because he feels like he's supposed to die young, and has never pictured his life beyond high school. I thought all teenagers had trouble picturing life after high school--I know I did. I guess I just feel like that feeling wasn't a good enough reason for him to opt out of treating a terminal illness, and Crutcher wrote the character as being relatively intelligent, so as a reader, I really struggled with the resulting paradox.

[Kathy · Rating 2 out of 5]

I loved Marla the therapist. She was believable and interesting. That said...this book felt so contrived. I disliked the main character and did not care what happened to him. He was very egotistical and unbelievable. Everything went right for him. I couldn't believe that he would get the girl, I couldn't believe that Rudy would change. I don't understand why Dallas and Rudy had the backgrounds that they did. There was no preparation for any of that. I read 182 without any connection. The only reason I finished the book was because it was a book club book.

I wonder if I didn't like this book because of the books I read right before this: Crooked Kind of Perfect, The Opposite of Invisible, Book Thief...maybe these books biased me. As of today though, I didn't like this book. I gave it two stars because we did have a good discussion about it!

[Matthew · Rating 3 out of 5]

Deadline by Chris Crutcher is about a boy named Ben that just found out some shocking and confusing news. The news he discovered was that he had less than one year to live. Ben chooses not to do what the doctors recommend and also makes the risky decision to play football with his brother. His main goal was to live his life to the fullest in this final period of time in his life. Throughout the duration of the book Ben creates many new friends. A lot of his friendships are tested, during this book. Ben reaches many of his goals in this book but also faces many hard yet interesting times.
There were many things I liked and disliked about the book Deadline. One thing that I liked about this book is that it had a significant amount of surprising moments. There were many shocks throughout this book both good and bad. Another thing I liked about this book is that it had a lot of diversity between characters. Not any of the character were really alike. Another thing I liked is the connection between Ben and his friends and family.
Having said this there are a few things I did not enjoy about this book. One thing I did not enjoy about this book is that it did not go into detail about some characters. They were mentioned and may have been involved in a few parts but you did not get to know them very well. Another thing that I did not like is the book showed a lack of emotion during various different scenes. Big important scenes would have no reaction. And if the characters did show emotion it was not what you had hoped for. Overall I think this book was good. This is not the kind of book that a person who loved getting to know more than a couple characters. Or that wanted to feel see the characters reactions to big events. This was a book for someone that loves excitement and loves durastic twists and turns.

[Julian M · Rating 3 out of 5]

Do you want to read a book that makes you think about life? If your answer is no, click away. If your answer is yes, you might want to check out this book called Deadline. It’s about a high schooler named Ben Wolf who finds out he has a rare disease and that he has one year left to live. He tries to live his life and spend the last couple of months of his life the best way he can. I have read some reviews about the book, and people say that the book is made for teenage boys. I agree with them that the content in the book is immature and that you pretty much need to know a lot about football to understand what’s going on when Ben Wolf, the main character, is doing when he plays on his flying school football team. I also have to disagree with her because, to be honest, I don’t even think the author intended for the audience to be teenage boys. As a teenage boy myself, I have to say that Ben Wolf’s persona doesn’t match that of a regular teenage boy. Especially as an older high schooler, he is pretty immature, and something about the way he acts seems off to me. At the same time, this book deals with themes that make even the oldest readers understand Ben and what he has to go through. So if you're afraid that the book won't be for you be for you, don't worry, the only thing you might have a problem understanding the football moments in the book.
Other than that, I’d say that the book was pretty decent after all. It had some pretty good moments that made me laugh and also made me think. It made me think about life and made me appreciate the fact that I don’t have any diseases. It also inspired me to live my life the way I want to live it because when Ben finds out he has one year left to live, he does everything he has always wanted to do and didn’t even hesitate to think about whether he actually should’ve or not. I would pretty much recommend this book to anyone interested in reading it. If you think that all of the topics discussed in the book is interesting to you, then this book is perfect for you to read.

[BookLover · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book almost made me cry. Ben learns that he has this really aggressive terminal disease and then decides not to treat it because he feels like this is his time. He doesn't tell anyone about it though and continues to live his life while eating healthy and taking supplements. He joins the football team and becomes a really good player. But then he starts to feel the symptoms of the disease and realizes that he is going to have to tell people about him. He starts telling people about how he is going to die, and that's what makes me sad because he's ready to go and people start looking at him differently. My favorite part is when Ben is gone and his brother Cody reads out a letter that he wrote. I loved this book so much and I totally recommend it.

[Debbie · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was my first Chris Crutcher book. It caught me off guard, made me smile, made me cry, made me think and made me mad. Isn't that what a well written book can do? I only picked it up because it was on a recommended list for high school boys that don't enjoy reading. I wanted to know what my son was reading. Be aware though. It includes some controversial, yet real issues, that pervade the fabric of our society.

[J & J · Rating 3 out of 5]

This had moments of greatness but they were not consistent, especially in the last part of the book.

[Payton LaCivita · Rating 2 out of 5]

thank you so much for this such inspirational and lifechanging book Mr slopek wow really change my perspective on truth !

[Dawn Taylor · Rating 4 out of 5]

I can think of so many students that will love this.

[Mady White · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was actually really good.

[Mackenzie RM · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is the second book I've read recently that's been about choices. Choosing between life or death. And I have to say, I think I liked this one better than If I Stay, which don't get me wrong, was amazing, but I think Deadline was absolutely stunning.

I was really moved by this novel. The only thing that had me slightly confused was all the football stuff. I'm not a football fan by any means - hockey is my sport ;) - so all the stuff about football, it's terminology and everything went a little over my head. It was okay though, I understood the basics of it at least. The best part was that through the author's writing style I could feel the excitement as the football games progressed and the sedated-ness of his writing when things weren't going so great. It made it easier for me to understand I think..

I loved Ben Wolf. He's such a strong, brave, funny character. I was surprised at his strength in the face of his imminent death. I was a little unsure of whether his choice at the beginning was a good one, but in the end I think it was.

I tried my hardest not to cry whilst reading up to the ending, which was definitely a challenge. It was so sad and touching. The last 5 or so pages were perfect. I loved the speech given at the end. It kind of lightened up the ending in a sense. And the part after the speech was so sweet.

An amazing book, not to be passed up if you get the opportunity to read it!

[Erika · Rating 5 out of 5]

Before reading this book, I was under the impression it was a boys book. I had heard a lot of it was dedicated to football so I wasn’t sure it was going to be my thing. I couldn’t have been more wrong! I absolutely loved it! Perhaps it was growing up watching sports all my life or my respect and fascination with the bond between brothers but I couldn’t put this book down.

As a reader, I really enjoyed the main character’s voice. He was witty and entertaining but we also got to hear his inner feelings and his heart. I connected with him very much throughout the trials of the book (so much so I was crying by the end). His strength throughout the story to stand on his own two feet, selfish though it may seem in the book, inspired me as I was reading it.

As a teacher, I would definitely consider reading this book. It would certainly throw a bone to the boys of the class who are sure to get sick of the girlie poetry sure to be addressed in my class. I think my students would find it inspirational, hopefully as much as I did. It would also be a great way to discuss Voice in your writing.

I would recommend this book more to boys than girls. I just think they would connect to it more. I would also keep it in middle and high school because of the adult sexual situations addressed in the book. Overall though I think it is a wonderful read that I cannot recommend highly enough.