1. This book begins in the middle of a teenage nightmare. Ezra was the "It" guy. Captain of varsity tennis, homecoming king, and student council President. Until he had his one tragedy, one night that changed everything and freed him from the expectations of everyone around him. He left a party after a fight with his girlfriend and is the victim of a crippling car accident. And as he is spending weeks in the hospital, not one of his "friends" or teammates is there to visit him. Not one. He should care more, but...that isn't the life he wanted. Reconnecting with his old friend Toby who suffered his own personal tragedy in seventh grade (catching the severed head of a Chinese tourist at Disneyland) and befriending the new girl in town with mystery surrounding her Ezra is finally able to start deciding who he wants to be. While this is easier said than done he cannot wish to change what happened to him. From tennis team to debate team, he couldn't ask for what this personal tragedy has done to him to be taken away, because he is grateful for it. Heartache, self-discovery, and severed head jokes for every day of the year allow readers to watch Ezra come in to his own, with his cane in one hand and leash to his giant poodle who might as well be Gatsby in the other.
2. The theme of the novel is overcoming the odds on the journey to self discovery. That is truly the only way to describe it. Ezra is the victim of a hit and run leaving his knee shattered and ending his ability to play sports, or walk without a cane. He has so much to overcome and while it would be easy to wallow in it or quit trying, he believes his tragedy has given him the gift of a new start. He is no longer obligated to sit with the dull-witted jocks or spend hours playing a sport he has no passion for just to please his father. This book is about deciding who you are and when it's time to start acting like it.
3. The tone was very sincere. The main character took things as they were and did not believe in sugar-coating what had happened to him, his situation, or his feelings while also keeping things quite hopeful.
"I can't say I forgive her for refusing to indulge the perhapsness of what might have been, but I understand why she chose to do it, and she never asked for my forgiveness."
"I don't know if he's right, but I do know I spent a long time existing, and now, I intend to live."
"I still think that everyone's life, no matter how unremarkable, has a singular tragic encounter after which everything that really matters will happen."
4.
- Foreshadowing: "It was as though I was collecting memories of her; as though I knew, or suspected, what was coming."
- metaphor: "Her eyes were a hurricane, and there was nowhere for me to seek cover.
- sarcasm: "I don't know why people say 'hit by a car' as though the other vehicle lashes out like some sort of champion boxer."
- amplification: "What hit me first was my airbag, and then my steering wheel, and I suppose the driver's side door and whatever that part is called that your knee jams up against."
- imagery: "there was the stink of my engine dying under the front hood, like burnt rubber, but salty and metallic."
- cacophony: "The impact was deafening, and everything just seemed to slam toward me and crunch."
- Characterization: Toby is at first just the old friend who caught the severed head on a Disneyland ride, but eventually becomes Ezra's salvation by way of giving him the second chance he has longed for.
- Conflict: Ezra is forced to overcome his crippling knee injury and find his true path.
- Flashback: Ezra begins a flashback to the night of his accident with "I had just turned seventeen, was embarrassingly popular, earned good grades, and was threatening to become eternally extraordinary."
- Juxtaposition: The author allows Ezra to reflect on his current situation in comparison to where he would have been.
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