The Pull of Gravity: Review

Title: The Pull of Gravity

Author: Gae Polisner

Release Date: May 2011

Published By: Farrour, Straus, and Giroux

Pages: 208

Goodreads Rating: 4.00 stars

Review: While Nick Gardner's family slowly falls apart, his best friend Scooter is dying. His last wish is that Nick and their strange classmate Jaycee deliver his prized copy of Of Mice and Men to the father that abandoned Scooter as a baby. There's just one problem, though - no one's heard from the Scoot's father in years. Guided by Steinbeck's wisdom and their own tentative friendship, Nick and Jaycee set out on a journey that just might fix - or destroy - everything.

THE PULL OF GRAVITY is a sweet and touching read, focusing around Nick and Jaycee as they struggle to make sense of life. Both have their problems, and their ways of confronting and grappling with the issues they face are admirable and heart-warming. There's both laughter and tears present in this novel, from the sarcastic witticisms of Jaycee to the hard-hitting obstacles they come up against.

One aspect that I truly loved was simply how well fleshed-out the characters were. A book like this has a concept that's certainly been done many times before, and in order to make it unique, there has to something different. In this case, it was the depictions of the characters. The individual personalities of Jaycee and Nick felt real, and their responses to the problems plaguing them were honest.

However, I did wish that either the romance was handled a little differently or that there simply wasn't one at all. It seemed to come out of nowhere, which bothered me, and so I couldn't really relate to the love between them. Perhaps if it developed a little more slowly, I could have bought into more and have had a better reading experience. As it was, though, I think I would have preferred to just see their friendship grow.

All in all, THE PULL OF GRAVITY is a short but lovely read examining two lives brought together in the face of their varying hardships. I particularly enjoyed reading about how much Nick grew as a character by the end of the novel, and although the romance was not exactly my favorite part of the book, the wonderful cast of characters made up for it. This is a book for anyone who enjoys a nice, touching contemporary coupled with a journey of sorts.