Customer Reviews

Cruise Control

5 star:		(10)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

I have a confession to make. I actually wasn't going to start reading CRUISE CONTROL for another week or two. After all, I had just read Inside Out and Stuck in Neutral in quick succession. I have a lot of other books on my reviewing plate, and I didn't want anyone to think I had a Terry Trueman obsession. But then I decided, "I want to read this book now, I probably do have a Terry Trueman obsession, and no one is going to stop me!" So...that's my story, I'm sticking to it, and now for the story of CRUISE CONTROL...

This book is billed as the companion book to Stuck in Neutral, not a sequel. And for good reason. This book doesn't pick up where Stuck in Neutral leaves off, although I would recommend reading that one first, if for no other reason than to learn the history of Shawn McDaniel and his family. CRUISE CONTROL is the story of Paul McDaniel, older brother to Shawn and sister Cindy, son of a prize-winning poet father who abandoned their family and a mother who works hard to take care of her children.

Paul is fully aware of the unfairness and inconsistencies in his life. He's the star of the basketball team--his brother is a veg, confined to his wheelchair and unable to control any of his movements, from blinking his eyelids to swallowing his food. Paul is always angry, even to the point of physically attacking virtual strangers--his brother is unable to show any emotion, at all from love to annoyance. He hates his father for leaving the family--and yet wonders what it would be like for him to be a bigger part of it. Paul's life is, for all accounts and purposes, messed up. As his sister, Cindy, puts it: "There's no way I'll ever believe that the problems a brother like Shawn brings to a family are 'gifts from God.'"

As Paul discovers that his father might not have left the family due to abandonment, as his feelings of rage turn to shame for a secret he's kept way too long, Paul realizes the truth that his mother has long known: "It's okay to love your brother."

CRUISE CONTROL is Paul's story, and it's just as heartfelt and genuine as Shawn's. I'm sorry to leave the McDaniel family behind, but at least it's with the feeling of love and respect, and not sorrow and shame.

Terry Trueman does it again...brings readers an intense look into the heart and soul of a character without wasting a word! This powerful companion book to the award-winning book, Stuck in Neutral (a book that still haunts me), is told from Shawn's brother Paul's perspective. Paul McDaniel is very angry...at life, at his father, at his brother, but perhaps more importantly at himself - for a secret that is at the very core of this additional look at how one family deals with heartache and tragedy in very different ways. The reality of Paul's anger is at times difficult to watch with readers feeling the pain rage inside of him. Even with all of the anger, readers will see a loving side to Paul...the loving side that feeds his brother bits of potato chips and wants desperately to be sure that Shawn knows he is his brother. While not a sequel and a title that certainly stands on its own, Cruise Control adds another dimension to a story that continues to have readers talking and thinking about the potential for one life to mean something more than it appears on the surface.

In STUCK IN NEUTRAL, Terry Trueman's 2001 award-winning novel, he developed a most unlikely narrator: Shawn, a young man whose body is incapacitated by severe cerebral palsy, but whose mind is more engaged than anyone would have imagined. Now, Trueman gives Shawn's older brother Paul a voice in the companion novel CRUISE CONTROL.

Paul is pretty much the polar opposite of Shawn: he is popular, gifted, a jock who can trust his body to perform at the highest level. He's also deeply angry, with a quick temper and a tendency to fly off the handle. Much of Paul's anger is directed at his father, a writer who wrote a Pulitzer Prize-winning poem about Shawn after he left the family, and now seems to use Shawn mostly for photo ops and talk show appearances. Paul, who deeply loves his brother (even though he calls him a "veg"), resents his father for abandoning him and for escaping the day-to-day realities of living with a profoundly disabled family member.

CRUISE CONTROL is sometimes a disturbing book, as when the reader is taken into Paul's head as he beats up a complete stranger, or when Paul and his equally angry friend Tim drive drunk. Although STUCK IN NEUTRAL was perhaps a more powerful book, in part because of its unusual and surprising narrator, CRUISE CONTROL is still a complex and moving portrayal, even with its more conventional main character. Although each novel can stand on its own merits, STUCK IN NEUTRAL and CRUISE CONTROL gain strength when read together, as they form a more complete portrait of a family dealing with the daily heartbreak of Shawn's disability.

--- Reviewed by Norah Piehl

The thing I liked most about this book is that it gets the first person male narration of a senior in high school pretty spot on. Paul is a highly successful athlete and scholar in his last year in high school, but is constantly brimming with a pressure-cooker full of rage. He's angry at his father, at people who try to get too close to him, and at the unfairness of life. Most of all, though, he's angry at himself and his confused feelings he feels towards his fourteen-year-old brother who is a "veg", as Paul describes him.

Many boys will enjoy this book because of the tone of the narration, but also because of the sports story and buzzer-beater ending. While there are some occasional 4-letter words (hello? as I said, he IS a senior in high school), I will recommend this probably to some select kids in my middle school classroom.

Stuck in Nuetral was about the life of Paul, a senior in highschool who is full of rage inside of him. He is a grade A student and a greatly athletic kid, with hope of joining a college basketball team. He despises his father extremely, and fights alot. But his anger could go too far one day, and he could end up getting in major trouble. He has to tell someone about his haunting past or he will explode.

I enjoyed the plot, it was full of alot of action. The book has fighting, sports, and drinking(what more do you need?). This book was incredibly easy to read with no trouble, even for a 5 year old. If you can't read, you can read this book. Cruise Control, I can say I loved it.

This book really is cool, but it also is sad at some parts. Paul, the main character, has a brother Shawn and a sister Cindy. Shawn has problems. He is "profoundly developmentally disabled".
Paul is in the 12th grade. He hates his father, Paul doesn't want to leave his family and go to college. He feels like he will be leaving them like he thought his dad did. He is captain of a lot of sports.
To the readers of this book, they should at least be 12-18 because this is a YA book (young adult). Paul swears sometimes when he is really mad, mostly when he talks about his dad. When Paul talks to his brother about the kids with the lighter and what happened, it was really sad. Not only because he wasn't all mad when talking to Shawn but mostly of what happened.
This book is great and well written you actually feel like you're there!

Paul McDaniel, 17 has a sister, Cindy who is 16 and a brother Shawn, who is 14. Shawn, whom readers met in STUCK IN NEUTRAL has severe cerebral palsy. He cannot walk; talk; swallow independently nor apply any self-care skills. Unknown to all, Shawn is very bright, but cannot communicate that.

Paul is a time bomb waiting to explode. An accomplished student and athlete, the one thing Paul cannot fight is Shawn's condition nor his growing anger at their father. Paul denounces the man; limits his contact with him as much as possible and is especially bitter over their father's winning a Pulitzer Prize with a poem about Shawn's condition. Paul feels that their father deserted the family and exploited Shawn. His anger comes out in the fights he picks and the dangerous risks he takes, such as threatening two bullies with immolation for attacking his brother.

It is just a question of time before Paul crashes into self-destruction. Time, a supportive coach, mother and basketball team help Paul put the brakes on the anger that threatens to consume him. One line I especially loved was when Paul's mother tells him, "I'm your mother too, not just Shawn's mother."

Many of the anecdotes Shawn shared in STUCK IN NEUTRAL are revisited in this novel. Terry Trueman is an author to watch out for!

*Note: In INSIDE OUT, the protagonist is Zach McDaniel Wahhsted. The McDaniel connection catches readers who have read this work as well.

I started to look at this book when a friend's daughter who just turned 12 brought it home from her school library. I was shocked at the amount of vulgar language and inappropriate sexual gestures in this book for the recommended age of 7th grade! I think the subject matter was appropriate for life; as some kids are dealing with siblings with handicaps. However it could have been written without the vulgar language. Not a fan for me!

This book is not a sequel to Trueman's masterpiece, but it does offer another viewpoint of the tragic Shawn McDaniel. The ending is very trite,but it will please those who loved Stuck in Nuetral and other Trueman books.

I thought this was a very good book. It really got in Paul's head. It has a very emotional begining and ending but it really draws you in. Terry Trueman knows how to write books in the first person. I really enjoy her style of writing. I loved how Paul finally said to Shawn, his brother, how he really did love him.