I’ve been enjoying Mark’s What I’m Reading posts so much that I decided, “Hey, I ought to do my own!”

This weekend, I was faced with the difficult decision of what to read next, and to my surprise, found
myself grabbing an ARC of SWAY by Kat Spears. This YA contemporary book, about a boy who can get
just about anything you want (for a price), finds himself having to get a girl. For someone else. Sounds
like a fun, if cheesy, premise (She’s All That, anyone?) – like a lighthearted romance, a look at a bad boy
and his growing feelings for a nice girl. Sure, this book does deal with a romance, but it is so much more.

Sway by Kat Spears
HC | September 16th, 2014 |  
Raincoast/Macmillan – St. Martin’s Griffin | 9781250051431

SWAY is actually a darkly funny story about a high school boy named Jesse Alderman (also known as
“Sway”, much to his chagrin). Jesse is not your usual protagonist. He’s blunt and crude and a bit of a
jerk; he deals drugs; and when football star Ken pays him to get a girl named Bridget to date him, he ends
up going through with the deception. He lies to her and feeds Ken information so that he can finally win
Bridget over. But this time around, Jesse starts feeling things again – for this girl he’s handed over to
someone else for money, for her kid brother Peter with cerebral palsy who is starting to hang around
him (and doesn’t know when to shut-up), and for his business partners who might just consider him a
friend. This is a book about Jesse’s relationships – the one with his father, with his dead mother, with the
people he’s known for years and those he’s just met.

I was pleasantly surprised with this book and couldn’t put it down! So if you’re looking for a dark, honest
YA contemporary story, look no further. I know I’ll be looking forward to more from Kat Spears.

~ Vanessa