SETH AND ME AND REBEL MAKES THREE

by Jeanette Eyerly ‧ RELEASE DATE: April 20, 1983

Eyerly's latest gloss on modern problems doesn't even hang together. It's about Ryan, a high school senior, who, with his friend Seth, moves into an apartment two months before high school graduation. (""How sharper than a serpent's tooth. . ."" says Ryan's mother, a former English teacher whose responses throughout are limited to marginally apt and overly familiar quotes.) Things are financially strained but otherwise okay, until the two are joined by Rebel, a sniveling runaway who ends up at the apartment by mistake (her friend used to live there) and can't be dislodged. Her money has been stolen en route from Colorado (this is Cedar City, Iowa), she can't get a job, and now she's sick. Her presence drives Seth out and causes Ryan to lose his girlfriend. Then Rebel turns up pregnant--and, thank heaven, too far along to blame it on the one night Ryan let her seduce him--and Ryan determines to take a weekend and drive her home. So much for Rebel. On the return trip Ryan, who has studied CPR, rescues a driver who has crashed after a heart attack. Next day he is fired from his pharmacy job for advising the wrong over-the-counter medicine (not his function anyway). Then the accident victim turns out to be a famous conductor, and Ryan is a public hero for saving him. He gets his job and his girl back, and the grateful conductor awards him a college scholarship, which he'll use to study pharmacy. The only plum in this lumpy porridge is the names of Ryan's employers, Herald and Gerald Brothers, and that's not much. So if Eyerly's mock-stereotyped chapter headings suggest a note of irony, perspective, play, or purpose, they're misleading.

Pub Date: April 20, 1983

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: -

Publisher: Lippincott

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 1983

Categories: FICTION