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Reviewed by:
  • No Man's Land
  • Deborah Stevenson
Underdahl, S. T. No Man's Land. Flux, 2012. 272p. Paper ed. ISBN 978-0-7387-3305-0 $9.99 Ad Gr. 7-10.

In Dov's family, everything's focused on Brian, Dov's older brother, a former football hero now serving in Afghanistan. Sixteen-year-old Dov, self-described as "emo," couldn't be more of a contrast, preferring to hide behind his dyed black hair and hang with his friends (and his beloved gecko). When Brian's injured in a lethal attack, Dov and his parents fear the worst, but they're relieved when it turns out Brian's injuries are comparatively minor and that he's returning home. Once he's back in the embrace of the family, though, it's apparently only Dov who sees that Brian isn't a tough, unaffected survivor but a deeply troubled young man. With his wry and self-deprecating sense of humor and genuine love for his brother undimmed by having to live in his shadow, Dov's voice is compelling. The contrast between the adulation of the hometown hero and Brian's own exhaustion is poignant, and the book is particularly good at conveying Brian's frustration at a seemingly trivial existence, where he comes home from making life-or-death decisions to find he could be arrested for buying alcohol. Story and characters are too often overdrawn, though, with Brian's climactic hallucination and violence contrivedly melodramatic; the subplot about Dov's crush on a hot new girl fails to engage, and it leads to a predictable revelation about his longterm female friend's true feelings. Dov is an enjoyable protagonist, however, and his keenly felt emo take on the situation will helpfully mirror many readers' own reactions. [End Page 267]

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