Sunny by Jason Reynolds

Part three in the four part Track Series by Jason Reynolds, Sunny  just came out at the beginning of April. That makes this unusually fresh read for me. I generally wait with great patience for prices to come down, but this one was a media center purchase and I swiped it. In my defense I waited a whole three weeks.

Each of the four books follows a different character and is named for that character. These four kids are the new members of the community track team. I have to admit, of the four characters I was least looking forward to Sunny. I mean Ghost starts it all off and he's an amazingly compelling and sympathetic character. Patina comes next and she's super sassy coupled with an interesting home situation. But Sunny.

Sunny is just weird. He's this super smiley kid who seems to react weirdly to the events in the other two books. There's just something off about him.

To give Reynolds credit, he really works with that for this book. Sunny is written as a series of diary entries but I swear the kid is suffering from synesthesia. He interprets everything as sound, but it does enliven the diary entries.

Sunny also has an interesting back story. His mom died giving birth to him and he lives in a giant house with his father, Darryl. He's also home schooled. (I'm not inherently opposed to the idea of homeschooling but I have to admit that as it is described here I have to wonder what the kid is actually learning.) All of this accounts some for his weird affect.

This is a good quick read. The diary entries are short providing a lot of breaks and the subject matter is relatable.I'll be interested in how Reynolds closes out the series.