Me Myself & Him

Chris Schweitzer’s ideal Green River, Ohio, summer looked very different from the one that he’s living. It definitely didn’t involve being busted for doing whippits in the alley behind work and then shipped off to California to work under his genius physicist dad, who left the family years earlier. That he’s made to go to drug counseling every week and torn from his two best friends in their last summer before college feels to Chris like extra helpings of unfair. But what if Chris hadn’t been forced to leave his summer plans behind? Told in alternating chapters, one story follows Chris west, while the other follows an alternate timeline detailing what would have happened had he not been caught. Tebbetts creates entertaining dual narratives, but the ambitious genre meld—fantasy, sci-fi, religious, and coming-of-age story—falls short in delivering a coherent plot and leaves too many threads dangling. The hidden parallels linking each alternate-reality story, though, create enjoyable Easter eggs that sci-fi fans may enjoy. Ages 14–up. [em]Agent: Michael Bourret, Dystel & Goderich Literary Management. (July) [/em]