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Summary
Summary
2015 Top Ten Sports Books for Youth, Booklist
Biggie is about one loner's imperfect chase of perfection.
Henry "Biggie" Abbott is the son of one of his hometown's most famous athletes. His father was a baseball legend and his step-dad is a close second. At an obese 300+ pounds though, Biggie himself prefers classroom success to sports. As a perfectionist, he doesn't understand why someone would be happy getting two hits in five trips to the plate. "Forty percent, that's an F in any class," he would say. As Biggie's junior year begins, the girl of his dreams, Annabelle Rivers, starts to flirt with him. Hundreds of people have told him to follow in his dad's footsteps and play ball, but Annabelle might be the one to actually convince him to try.
Author Notes
Derek E. Sullivan is an award-winning reporter at the Rochester Post-Bulletin in Minnesota. As a reporter, he has written more than 1,000 stories about the lives of teenagers, which he attributes to helping him find his YA voice. He has an MFA from Hamline University and lives in Minnesota with his wife and three sons. This is his first novel.
Reviews (5)
Publisher's Weekly Review
Henry "Biggie" Abbott is socially invisible, by choice. The obese 17-year-old lives in a 6,000 sq. ft. house with an indoor baseball field (his stepfather is a local baseball legend) but manages to avoid athletic pursuits and live under the radar. Biggie prefers to channel his perfectionism and personality into academics and spending time online, where he cultivates a robust social life through carefully crafted messages on social networks. After Biggie throws a perfect game of whiffle ball in gym class, he wonders if it's a fluke. If it's not, what else is he capable of? Stepbrother Maddux persuades Biggie that with early-morning workouts, healthy eating, and practice, Biggie can pitch a perfect game for the school's baseball team, avoid diabetes, gain the respect of his stepfather, and win over his crush. Thoughtful and witty, Biggie tells a story full of physical and emotional highs and lows as debut author Sullivan empathetically addresses topics of self-esteem and finding healthier, happier versions of oneself (and what that even means). Ages 13-up. Agent: Sara Megibow, Megibow Literary Agency. (Mar.) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
Horn Book Review
High school junior Biggie, the son of a professional baseball player, weighs more than three hundred pounds; hes a loner who compensates for his lack of real friends in small-town Finch, Iowa, with a vast network of online acquaintances. But when his excused absences from PE are exposed as fraudulent, hes forced into a game of Wiffle ball, and it becomes the catalyst for change that he desperately needs. Determined not only to make the varsity baseball team but also to pitch a perfect game -- and win the girl of his dreams in the bargain -- Biggie makes drastic changes to his diet, exercise, and social routine. He gradually leaves his comfort zone, learns from his mistakes, and resolves family issues on the way to finding love, life, and happiness. If the whole metamorphosis seems a bit easy, debut author Sullivan otherwise hits all the right notes in this coming-of-age story with an endearing underdog protagonist. jonathan hunt(c) Copyright 2015. The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Booklist Review
Overweight is an understatement for 17-year-old Henry Abbott. Exceeding 300 pounds, he knows his nickname, Biggie, requires no explanation. His strategy for getting through the vitriol of high school unscathed is a combination of academic perfection and invisibility. Though he has no friends in his small Iowa town, Biggie is quite popular online, especially with the ladies. When his mother rips up the phony doctor's note excusing him from gym class, Biggie is forced to engage with his classmates and the girl he secretly loves. In a town that lives for baseball, Biggie has hidden from the sport behind extra pounds and social media. After pitching a perfect Wiffle ball game in gym, however, Biggie thinks that baseball might be a way to get the girl of his dreams. Never glossed over, Biggie's challenges with obesity and inner growth make him a memorable character. Venturing beyond the typical boy-seeks-girl story, this filters the agonies of adolescence through a largely unvoiced perspective with an honesty readers will appreciate.--Smith, Julia Copyright 2015 Booklist
School Library Journal Review
Gr 9 Up-Biggie, the intelligent but insecure son of local baseball legends, eats his way to obesity. After displaying unexpected skill as a pitcher, the 300-plus-pound teen trains to lose weight, join the high school baseball team, and, perhaps, win the heart of his crush, reaching self-confidence in the process. © Copyright 2016. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Kirkus Review
In Sullivan's debut novel, an obese and lonely high school boy dreams of love, pitching a perfect game and finding his place in the world. Funny how a boy who stands 6 foot 2 and weighs "north of three hundred pounds" can be invisible. But that's how Henry "Biggie" Abbott likes it. He has discovered that the bigger he gets, the less fellow students make fun of him. He sits in the backs of classrooms, rarely speaks, and relies on Yahoo and Facebook to accumulate a massive friends list. Trouble is, he dreams of kissing Annabelle Rivers, and invisible boys don't get the beautiful girls. When Biggie happens to pitch a perfect Wiffle ball game in gym class, he thinks maybe he could pitch a perfect game for his school's baseball team. Younger brother Maddux says he would be the first player in school history to do so, and not even his father, a member of the Iowa Baseball Hall of Fame, threw one in his day. The first-person point of view works well here, demonstrating Biggie's lonely self-absorption and his earnest forays in seeking connections. Though the pacing is sometimes slow, Biggie's story will resonate with all those students who feel invisible and alone. A bighearted story that will have readers rooting for Henry "Biggie" Abbott. (Fiction. 14-18) Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
