Drums, Girls, and Dangerous Pie by Jordan Sonneblick

"Instead of agonizing about the things you can’t change, why don’t you try working on the things you CAN change?"

I found this book review on Goodreads (as usual, consult to this particular website before I start reading a book). Actually, I was searching for The Fault in Our Stars review, but then I was shifted to this unique title of young adult book.

What made me really curious was, the readers said that this book was filled with sarcasm by the main character, Steven. He was an eighth grader and had a super annoying five-year-old little brother, Jeffrey. As what little siblings did, Jeffrey was the big fan of Steven and always depended on him on many occasions. Steven found this rather annoying, especially when Jeffrey unintentionally humiliated him in front of his girl friend, Annette, and his crush, Renee.

However, when Jeffrey’s illness was discovered, Steven’s life suddenly turned upside down. He was detected to have a leukemia. His mom was suddenly forced to resign from her job to take care of Jeffrey. His father worked harder to cover up Jeffrey’s treatment. Steven had a difficulty to deal with his school and his drum lessons as his mind only directed to Jeffrey’s condition. His family’s life was no longer the same as before.

It seemed pretty cliche, a story that told a family whose member suffered from some sort of illness. However, the author, Jordan Sonnenblick, had succesffully formulated this Drums, Girls, and Dangerous Pie into a heart-warming story. As it was told from a young adult’s point of view, we would be invited to feel the deepest feeling of Steven’s. Also, because he was only thirtheen, we also could see how Steven dealt with his girl friends and his environment by using such sarcastic words, but in a hilarious way.

As the Goodreads review said, “a brave and beautiful story that will make readers laugh and break their hearts at the same time.” Because by reading this book, we learned that, no matter how annoying your siblings were, no matter how annoyed you were by them, deep down in your heart, you know that you really did care of them.