Whale Talk by Chris Crutcher

Whale Talk is a sports fiction novel. However, it deals with other topics, such as modern day racism (a few characters in the story are racist), abuse, and how one accident can change someone’s life forever. The story is about The Tao Jones; everyone just calls him T.J. Jones (the J is from Jones). T.J. was adopted when he was very young because his biological mother was a drug addict and left him alone for hours at a time. Throughout his life he has faced racism and is tired of it. T.J. is very athletic, and in a school that values its athletic program, he is also criticized for not trying out for football, basketball, or any other sport. Then, he sees a kid being picked on for wearing his deceased brother’s Cutter High letter jacket. When T.J. is asked to put together a swim team, he decides to fill it with a group of kids who don’t really fit in with the other Cutter kids, including Chris Coughlin, the kid who was wearing his brother’s jacket. The book caught me because of the plot and a few other things. The main plot of the story is about how the swim team progresses throughout the season. Another thing that caught me in
Whale Talk is that it is a roller coaster ride of emotions. In a matter of pages, the story can go from normal to suspense to sad and back to normal, or it can go from normal to suspense to rage to suspense and back to normal. Another catchy thing in the book is the ending. IT is very unexpected and sad. All things considered, it was an okay read. - Bruce H