In the sweat-soaked summer of 1985, fourteen-year-old David McAlister braces for high school’s looming shadow. Branded “The Ultimate Slacker” by his family, he escapes into backyard baseball with his tight-knit crew: stoic Nick, brash Evan, and brainy Jessie. But when a stray ball lands in the yard of Willie, a neighbor whose rage simmers like the July heat, their fragile world fractures.

As tensions with Willie escalate, David’s own battles intensify: a brother’s suffocating legacy, a bully’s relentless taunts, and fireworks gathering dust in his basement, hinting at chaos to come. Over fourteen relentless days, loyalty is tested, buried secrets detonate, and David’s defiant avoidance of adulthood shatters.

Sierra immerses you in David’s world with visceral precision, cracked picket fences, the tang of cheap peanut butter sandwiches, and Lady the German Shepherd’s unwavering loyalty. His prose pulses with the rhythm of restless youth, balancing wry humor against raw vulnerability. Through David’s unfiltered lens, ordinary moments, a stolen loaf of bread, a neighbor’s glacial stare, become landmines on the path to self-discovery.

This is more than a coming-of-age tale; it’s a pressure cooker of adolescence where friendship collides with violence, and the choices made in two weeks scorch a permanent mark. Sierra doesn’t just tell David’s story; he lets you feel the grit under your nails, smell the sulfur in the air, and taste the fear of a boy racing time itself.