Winger

Smith, A., &Bosma, S. (2013). Winger. New York: Simon &Schuster Children's Pub. 

Ryan Dean Smith (aka Winger) is a 14 year old Junior at Pine Mountain boarding school.  He hates being treated and viewed as just a kid, especially by his best friend, and love interest, Annie.  Told from Ryan Dean's perspective, he chronicles his Junior year- being on the rugby team, having to live in Opportunity Hall with the delinquents of the PM (and rooming with Chas Becker, the scariest and meanest kid on his rugby team), playing rugby, his hormonal tendencies to find just about every girl and woman he sees as hot (and rates them on different Ryan Dean West scales), and the friendships that he both ruins and discovers.  Throughout the story of his junior year, Ryan West speaks to the reader and also shares his funny cartoons.  The climax of the plot happens just before the end, when one of Ryan Dean's best friends, Joey, is found beaten to death.  Joey was gay and everyone knew it and most everyone was fine with it because Joey was a good guy.  The story quickly wraps up with finding out it was two football players who brutally and drunkenly murdered Joey (one of whom was secretly hitting on Joey).  Ryan Dean finds comfort from Annie, his now girlfriend, and mends broken friendships.  

This book, although heavy at the end, is quite hysterical.  Smith writes with the humor, sarcasm, and perversion of a teenage boy.  Between the laughable and embarrassing happenings of Ryan Dean, his sarcasm, and his cartoons, the reader can't help but like the kid.  There's just enough suspense to keep the reader turning the pages, but Joey's death sneaks up on the reader at the end and keeps the reader wanting more to read.  The story wraps up pretty abruptly.  The characters are consistent with the real world that kids live in today- the way that Winger interacts and talks with his buddies, the thoughts he has about girls/women, the speech of the characters- it's all there.  This could be a great book to rope in reluctant readers.