The Off Season (CBR6 #7)

Title: The Off Season
Author: Catherine Gilbert Murdock
 
Description (from Amazon.com): “Life is looking up for D.J. Schwenk. She’s in eleventh grade, finally. After a rocky summer, she’s reconnecting in a big way with her best friend, Amber. She’s got kind of a thing going with Brian Nelson, who’s cute and popular and smart but seems to like her anyway. And then there’s the fact she’s starting for the Red Bend High School football team—the first girl linebacker in northern Wisconsin, probably. Which just shows you can’t predict the future. As autumn progresses, D.J. struggles to understand Amber, Schwenk Farm, her relationship with Brian, and most of all her family. As a whole herd of trouble comes her way, she discovers she’s a lot stronger than she—or anyone—ever thought.

This hilarious, heartbreaking and triumphant sequel to the critically acclaimed Dairy Queen takes D.J. and all the Schwenks from Labor Day to a Thanksgiving football game that you will never forget.”

Review: Obviously after my extreme love of Dairy Queen – and Natalie Moore’s amazing narration – I couldn’t wait to get The Off Season to keep me company on my commute.  And as I expected, it was WONDERFUL.  More unexpectedly, it was a departure from Dairy Queen in a lot of ways.
 
The biggest departure is that The Off Season is a lot heavier and more serious than its predecessor.  Not at the expense of DJ’s sense of humor, but definitely at the expense of some of the overall humor.  This isn’t a bad thing, but it definitely wasn’t as light and funny as Dairy Queen.

I don’t want to spoil too much, but DJ and her family go through some intense stuff in this book.  DJ starts out more mature than in Dairy Queen, and matures a lot more over the course of the book.  She has to face some really tough decisions about her sports (yes, this is important people – sports matter, a lot, to a lot of people, for a lot of reasons,) her family, and of course, Brian Nelson.  But while it was DJ’s humor and likability that made Dairy Queen so wonderful, it is DJ’s increasing maturity, grace, and strength that make The Off Season – maybe, depending on what you like, and if it’s even possible – even better.

Much like Dairy Queen, there’s not too much I can say about The Off Season without spoiling the plot, beyond the fact that DJ is what makes it or breaks it for you.  And I can’t imagine her breaking it for you.  At this point, I’m honestly a little sad that I can’t just be friends with DJ in real life.  I bet she’d make an awesome friend.  But this book is definitely more plot-driven than the first book in the series, despite DJ’s character development being even more intense than her character development in Dairy Queen.  There is a crisis halfway through that really brings DJ’s family, rather than her friendships and relationships, to the forefront.  There’s also a lot that makes DJ and her family really need to confront a dark side of sports as well as what they all love about it.  But through this all, DJ learns to stand up for herself, to fight for her family, and to be comfortable and confident with her life.  

So read Dairy Queen, but then read The Off Season – even if it’s not as light or funny as Dairy Queen, it is at least as satisfying.  And despite the bad times she faces, it is so wonderful to be back in DJ’s world for a while.