7 Days at the Hot Corner (review)

Scott Latimer thought he knew just how his senior year would wrap up—with a glorious championship victory for his baseball team and an offer to move up to the pros. Instead, he now faces a hellish week he didn't count on, waiting for the results of an HIV test and dreading an all too brief future wasting away with AIDS. And it's not because of anything he did, Scott will have you know; no, it's that his friend Travis, who's just come out, bled on him in a batting cage accident. Feelings of confusion, betrayal, and outright horror cloud Scott's perspective, but as he works through his emotions with the help of his parents over the agonizingly long week, he begins to consider his own minimal risk of infection with greater objectivity and to see his way back to the friendship he's valued for so many years. Scott's well established as a credible ordinary guy, and the baseball theme adds appeal. This is bildungsroman lite, though, with Scott touching the bases of self-awareness with programmatic precision. Moreover, there's a fair amount of painfully obvious AIDS education built into the text, as Scott regales the reader with the fruits of his Google searches for the most authoritative informational sites. Everything's tidied up too conveniently—the big win, the minor league contract, the negative test result, even the revelation that the supposed class homophobe is actually a very nice gay guy (and possibly Travis's significant other) afraid of his family's wrath. Still, Scott and Travis are decent sorts with genuine issues, and readers won't begrudge them their happy endings.