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Curveball: The Year I Lost My Grip (review)

Peter Friedman’s freshman year is off to a bad start when his neglected, abused pitching arm agonizingly quits on him for good and he’s forced to flounder about for a new interest in life. His grandfather, a retired professional photographer, suddenly hands over all his costly equipment; this could be a good thing, except that the generosity is probably precipitated by Grampa’s realization that Alzheimer’s is making an irreversible incursion into his life. Peter, who has always enjoyed tagging along on Grampa’s photo shoots, puts the equipment to use in an advanced photography class at school, where he meets Angelika, another freshman, who complements his technical skills with a strong sense of composition and design. They make a great working team, but Peter hopes they’ll make a romantic team as well; Angelika is more than ready to reciprocate, but Peter can’t quite catch her encouraging signals at the right moment to clinch the deal. Sonnenblick offers a niche market plot that’s far more rare than it should be—a rom-com for guys. The dramatic obstacles along Peter and Angelika’s road to romance amount more to potholes than roadblocks, but the everyday miscues and bumbling conversations that threaten to keep them from becoming more than “just friends” are all the more engrossing for their mundane realism. The subplot of Grampa’s degeneration—and the family’s reluctance to confront it honestly—adds gravitas to Peter’s adolescent travails. Middle-schoolers will applaud Peter’s effort to carve out a life without baseball and to earn the affection of a girl as good and clever as he discovers himself to be. EB