19 ratings (5.00 avg)
1 review

Cara

Add friend

Cara’s Bookshelves

to-read‎ (0)

currently-reading‎ (1)

read‎ (19)

Stats | More…

Cara is Currently Reading

Cara is currently reading

The Perfect Shot

by Elaine Marie Alphin

bookshelves: currently-reading

Reading for the 2nd time

read in February 2013

Rate this book

Clear rating

1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars

Cara said: " When I first picked up the book, The Perfect Shot, by Elaine Marie Alphin, I expected it to be a decent book mainly about basketball, which I don’t care much for. Boy was I wrong! Alphin blew my expectations out of the water with this novel. Not only When I first picked up the book, The Perfect Shot, by Elaine Marie Alphin, I expected it to be a decent book mainly about basketball, which I don’t care much for. Boy was I wrong! Alphin blew my expectations out of the water with this novel. Not only was it action packed and kept me guessing until the end, I actually enjoyed the basketball part of the book! The Perfect Shot would mainly be for young adult audiences who enjoy sports and crime/thriller books. Now, let’s explore more of the plot.
The story begins by introducing us to the main character: Brian. He’s one of the most hardworking athletes on the basketball team, but he cannot make that perfect shot like his best friend and teammate, Julius. Eight months ago, his girlfriend Amanda, her brother Cory, and their mother were murdered in their garage on a summer afternoon. Brian is consumed with guilt because that same day, Amanda had asked Brian if she and Cory could play ball with him. Brian turned her down, saying he needed time to play with his pals. He never even heard the gunshots over the constant drawl of the orange ball bouncing on the concrete. Bang. Bang. Bang. Three perfect shots. When the police came to talk to Brian, he says he was focused on his shooting and didn’t really see anything out of the ordinary. At the end of the interview, Brian adds that he saw a jogger in a gray sweatshirt. He doesn’t know if it means anything, but he thought they should check into it. Instead it ends up being Amanda’s father who is the main suspect in the murder of his entire family. When Brian is assigned a project in history class on Leo Frank, an innocent man who was wrongly convicted and hanged for a murder he didn’t commit, it gets him thinking about the case. But Brian doesn’t want to think about it. He wants to drown out all of his feelings in basketball, because it is just too much. Worse still, Julius, Brian’s best friend who also happens to be black, was arrested for being a black kid in the wrong place at the wrong time. Brian has to face it that the justice system is flawed.
What I liked most about this book is that it shows the difference between making the choice that will keep you safe and making the choice that is right. I also liked the fact that I never knew who the real killer would be until the end. The constant action keeps you on your toes and I wanted to keep reading from the second I picked it up. Finally, I loved how it showed the interactions between jocks and outcasts improving once they finally understand each other. I would definitely recommend this book to anybody who likes sports and action thrillers. The book ended up being exciting and relatable to the common teenager, whether they are a jock, an outcast, or somebody in-between. This modern book exceeded my expectations of a shallow book about sports and turned it into a book that really made me think and taught me to always do the right thing, even if it seems dangerous or risky. We must live our life doing things that make us happy and live for the moment. ...more "

Feb 06, 2013 01:09PM · see review