A Dedication
John Zaiss
(Reviewer - Rebecca Brown)
2005 Synergy Books
ISBN: 0975592238

An intelligent & under achieving-teenager meets a Renaissance, retired Marine Veteran.

How do the stumbling blocks of adolescence become stepping stones to maturity? What can heal a thirty-year wound? What can turn frustration into compassion, a know-it-all “attitude” into forgiveness, & destructive behavior into life-affirming discipline?

& no, it's not by issuing orders, nor taking control, as both Quinn Marshall & his parents are learning.

Quinn, a clever & cynical high school senior, & his huge, Letterman classmate Winnie are out exploring the mountains around Boulder, Colorado after school one day. Quinn is there to satisfy his photography addiction, & Winnie because he likes to think of other things beside football. When they come upon a lone, old man on the shore of a hidden lake, painting the scene in oils, they surprise him. Before anyone can stop it, there's a bit of a fight in which Quinn puts his foot through the painting, & while trying to free himself from the old man's attack, gets whacked on the cheekbone by one of his cameras.

After peace is restored, & the old man gives Quinn his business, card, the boys hightail it for home. Unfortunately, home is where the real battle is raging. Quinn is failing all his classes, except photography, & his parents expectations. Then he finds out not only has he been caught plagiarizing a history report, he's been given Fs in everything. This is not good news, & his parents crack down: no car keys, no computer, & worse... no cameras.

Quinn's life is out of control, he's heavily invested in giving his younger sister the cold shoulder & a hard time -- of course, she's a total pain, & can read any situation as easily as a road map. Nothing gets past her beady, little eyes. His Dad, a commercial airline pilot, is often away & used to be his best friend, back when he was just a kid. That leaves his Mom as the law enforcer & dragon of daily humiliations. For two months he's been holding a self-righteous siege in his dirty room, purposefully keeping his hair long & unwashed, & testing just how far he can push both at home & at school. He's been kind of happy in his misery, that is until the day he meets the man whose picture he took & whose painting he stomped, in a cafe, & they start talking.

Without Quinn even noticing, Joe Toscano draws him out of his self-satisfied isolation, & begins to get Quinn thinking about where his life is heading, what learning is really about, why being honest & living up to your word matters, & what the cost of happiness is.

A Dedication is a compelling read, told in Quinn's cocky & funny point of view. Sometimes it's sappy, & sometimes Quinn makes mountains of molehills, & sometimes he's serious -- hey, isn't that life? I deeply enjoyed watching him “get” it about his life & his choices, as well as seeing how Joe helped ease the collision of parental & offspring tectonic plates, called adolescence. I've always thought teenagers need someone other than their parents & their teachers, who are all heavily invested in having the kid turn out “right”, to guide them. & parents need someone who's been there & done that to spot them through their adolescents' angst. Isn't that what grandparents are for?

As a person inordinately fond of tales about transforming the quality of your life, about re-training yourself out of bad emotional habits & ingrained tracks to lousy life choices, I'm happy to recommend A Dedication. It's a worthy teaching read wrapped up in a jolly good adventure. Manly & amusing, emotional & honorable. A story of a young man who survived to tell the tale, about another young man who survived two wars to give guidance to a life of peace.

Very well done, even if it's a bit “squeaky-clean”!
(05/22/05)

Rebecca