Synopsis: Recently orphaned, eleven-year-old Cathy Benson feels she has been dropped into a cultural and intellectual wasteland when she is forced to move from her academically privileged life in California to the small town of Kersey in the Texas Panhandle where the sport of football reigns supreme. She is quickly taken under the unlikely wings of up-and-coming gridiron stars and classmates John Caldwell and Trey Don Hall, orphans like herself, with whom she forms a friendship and eventual love triangle that will determine the course of the rest of their lives. Taking the three friends through their growing up years until their high school graduations when several tragic events uproot and break them apart, the novel expands to follow their careers and futures until they reunite in Kersey at forty years of age. Told with all of Meacham’s signature drama, unforgettable characters, and plot twists, readers will be turning the pages, desperate to learn how it all plays out.
Initial Thoughts
When I was Barnes and Nobles in the bargain section, I was looking a for cheep buy that would help cool off the stress during my AP exam week. There, I found Tumbleweeds. I have to admit that the cover was what drew me in. The book has a beautiful dominantly navy blue cover with a subtle 3D effect that made the book stand out from the other books. Another thing that got me excited to buy the book was the story line. I love books that follow characters through their lives and it’s always entertaining to see how relationships change and the overall progression of time’s affect on the characters. I had a feeling that with two boys and one girl, drama’s going to go down so with all these reasons, I bought the book.
After Reading the Book
The book was a roller coaster ride to say the least. If you like drama, this book is for you. If you don’t like drama, I suggest you let another person check out/buy this book. The story line and plot was beautiful. I was sitting at the edge of my chair at all times while reading this book. The author did a wonderful job making the book an intense, suspenseful read. The plot was also really easy to follow as there weren’t many characters to make the setting and plot distracting. The author did a good job concentrating and showing the coming of age in all three of the main characters and did an amazing job when writing Cathy. Cathy goes through a remarkable journey in this novel and her character development was the most interesting to see as she matured into a woman. The Cathy that’s introduced to the readers in the beginning of the novel is far different than the Cathy that closes the novel.
The main thing that bothered me in the novel was the end. I felt like the end of the novel was a bit rushed compared to the beginning of the novel and this kind of hurt some of the character’s personality. I felt like the end should have evoked some feelings in Cathy that were absent in the novel. It’s hard to say more without giving away the end but I’ll just say that love simply never vanishes away, no matter how much you try to push it aside and cover it up. There will always be something there. I felt like the author could have done a better job with Cathy’s character at the end but over all, the book was a great read.
Some disclaimers ahead of time, this book is an adult book. It is not a young adult book but as someone who likes to stay away from uncomfortable sexual scenes, this book only had one scene that made me uncomfortable. It was a very short scene that was at max a paragraph long meaning maybe five sentences?
In conclusion, I would give this book a three out of five. The story line was amazing and the author made the book very unpredictable. I do have to admit that there were times while I was reading the book that I wanted to bang my head on a wall, not because it was bad, but because of the suspense. It is a general coming to age romance novel that we see all over book shelves with a little bit of football, a lot of drama, and a game of love that will result in many loses but also some unexpected victories.