Book Review: Sway by Kat Spears

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Sway
Author: Kat Spears
Reading Level: Young Adult
Genre: Contemporary
Released: September 16th 2014
Review Source: St. Martin's Griffin

In Kat Spears’s hilarious and often poignant debut, high school senior Jesse Alderman, or "Sway," as he’s known, could sell hell to a bishop. He also specializes in getting things people want---term papers, a date with the prom queen, fake IDs. He has few close friends and he never EVER lets emotions get in the way. For Jesse, life is simply a series of business transactions.

But when Ken Foster, captain of the football team, leading candidate for homecoming king, and all-around jerk, hires Jesse to help him win the heart of the angelic Bridget Smalley, Jesse finds himself feeling all sorts of things. While following Bridget and learning the intimate details of her life, he falls helplessly in love for the very first time. He also finds himself in an accidental friendship with Bridget’s belligerent and self-pitying younger brother who has cerebral palsy. Suddenly, Jesse is visiting old folks at a nursing home in order to run into Bridget, and offering his time to help the less fortunate, all the while developing a bond with this young man who idolizes him. Could the tin man really have a heart after all?

A Cyrano de Bergerac story with a modern twist, Sway is told from Jesse’s point of view with unapologetic truth and biting humor, his observations about the world around him untempered by empathy or compassion---until Bridget’s presence in his life forces him to confront his quiet devastation over a life-changing event a year earlier and maybe, just maybe, feel something again.

This book totally caught me by surprise; I was expecting just a romance and got much more. Sway follows Jesse Alderman also known by others as Sway. A senior in high school that can get anything you need done. Jesse’s the man you would go to when you needed something done, like getting your papers written, help with popularity, getting the girl, but everything had a cost.

When I first started this book I was totally expecting a YA romance, and though there was some romance it wasn’t what the book was focused on. Right off the bat when we meet Jesse he’s paying for papers, cutting deals with the principle, getting party favors, and attempting to help a football star snag a girl. And just by that you can guess that type of person he is, but he never strays from himself, he won’t let people get close and he just gets by. He may be the one with the party favors but he’s never the one joining the actual party. And as much as I love a cutesy love story, I’m glad this one turned out to be so much more. Jesse was an ass, crude at times, but I totally got invested in him. I loved reading his story and watching him grow, he grew slowly too. It wasn’t that he changed overnight, or because he met the one, he changed while making mistakes, hurting himself and all the others around him. Don’t get me wrong he definitely helped out the underdogs too. And while he’s trying to get the guy the girl, he incidentally falls for her, which is a problem because Jesse refuses to feel.

I totally loved this book and was taken by complete surprise by how invested I got with Jesse.  If you’re looking for romance you won’t get much of that here, but you’ll get a story that you’ll love. You may hate Jesse in the beginning but trust me you’ll want to know his story.