Hometown Favorite

Title: HOMETOWN FAVORITE
Author: Bill Barton and Henry 0. Arnold
Publisher: Revell
2008
ISBN: 978-0-8007-1914-2
Genre: Inspirational/contemporary

Dewayne Jobe has a whole shoe box full of full-ride college scholarship offers, thanks to his outstanding abilities on the football field. His best friends also have offers, but they are all from different schools, so the boys know that when they head off to college they are saying goodbye. Dewayne hops a bus in his hometown of Springdale, Mississippi, and heads off to the different world of California to play football.

Some years later, Dewayne is a guaranteed Hall of Famer, and a franchise savior. His beautiful wife runs his lucrative business, and they are expecting their first child. Dewayne is on “Easy Street.”

But then troubles blindside him. Will Dewayne summon the faith and character to get through this, or will he lose everything?

I wasn’t real impressed with HOMETOWN FAVORITE. There is a bunch of endorsements on the back of this book, but I couldn’t get into the story at all. The story is supposed to be about Dwayne, but there is a lot of head-hopping in the book. The authors didn’t pay much attention to point-of-view at all. The story is also mostly told, keeping the reader at a distance.

I can’t heartily recommend HOMETOWN FAVORITE, but if you enjoy football, and the lives of the football players then you might enjoy reading this book. There is a romance, a lot of football and talk, and then the crisis that does teach a valuable message. $19.99 hardcover. 363 pages.