"My Most Excellent Year"--Book Review

 The friendship of TC, Augie and Alejandra is detailed within the pages of Steve Klugger’s My Most Excellent Year. The sub-heading includes the phrase “a novel of love, Mary Poppins and Fenway Park”, and Klugger delivers just that and more. Structure plays the largest role in the story-telling, as it is set up in varying formats such as e-mail, IM and text. This is all interwoven under the guise of first person narration in the form of the four high school freshman’s year-long journal project. Bullying, first dates, last dates, struggle with sexuality and the struggle of coming out are all topics covered throughout the novel’s execution, highlighting important firsts for heterosexual, homosexual and strictly platonic relationships. It is important for any novel to have this level of diversity, but the story opening up in front of the reader’s eyes is both heartwarming and realistic. The size may be daunting to some, but is surely one of those novels like Perks of Being a Wallflower that will stick with you well past the last page. From friendships, to romance and back again, this novel covers the majority of teenage issues in a tasteful and relatable fashion.