This book is very subtle. It seems like not much is going on with Potter, recent college grad back at home in Missouri, but a lot is going on. He has parents he doesn't feel entirely comfortable around; he has a rich pal; an ex-girlfriend; a temp job; a hot neighbor; a lonely kid whom he befriends; and a dead brother.

Yes, on some level he's trying to figure out himself, but it's not self-conscious. His reflections on what he sees and experiences—some of his descriptions are wittily good—don't come off as condescending because he's always one step behind everyone. Always scrambling.

It took me almost the entire book to figure out that the whole time he was suffering a broken heart. (He never cried. Guys hold a lot inside). But even though Potter is kind of sad and lonely, and he's in that time of life between leaving adolescence and defining one's adulthood, you know things are going to change for him. He even says that at one point, that things are always changing. And yet still there are those constants you can rely on—which is what I got from the end of this book: his dad, his mom, a friend, and baseball season.