City News
Season One by Kobe Bryant
Review by Samar
Failure. It is something that people are scared of, some more than others. The reason being is because these people have to get out of a certain situation they are unwillingly placed in, so failure is not an option. One such person who worked his hardest to avoid failure is Reggie. Reggie is a character in the book, Season One , by Kobe Bryant and Wesley King. This book is the second in its series, Training Camp . Reggie, alongside the rest of his basketball teammates, lives in a poor and abandoned city known as “The Bottom”. Reggie lives with his grandma and sister and knows he must become a basketball star in order to get his family out of this place.
However, Reggie is not even a starter and has more obstacles than anyone else on the team. However, Reggie is aware that failure is not an option and that his work ethic and determination will be the deciding factors of whether or not he will be able to escape “The Bottom”. The reason I chose to read this book is because I completely fell in love with the first book in the series and was curious to see what would happen to the team after lots of intense practices in training camp. Unlike the first book, this one was not slow at all and got straight to the point, giving me another reason to keep reading and not get bored. This book was not repetitive at all and had lots of twists, keeping it interesting the whole time.
Another thing I liked about Season One is that it detailed the struggles of Reggie and how he improved his work ethic drastically to become a better player. He kept on working until he became a starter and even led his team to Nationals, something that has never been done in the history of the team. Reading about his determination and perseverance easily made Reggie my favorite character in the entire series, not
just the book. I’m glad that they based this entire book solely off of him because he did not get a part in the last one.
A character in this book I did not really like reading about was Rolabi Wizenard. I really enjoyed reading about Rolabi in the last book, however he was a very small character in this book. Another reason why I did not like reading about Rolabi was because he did not give great advice as the head coach of the team. Additionally, Rolabi kept on picking on Reggie throughout the book, even if he was just trying to make Reggie a better player. I felt that his nagging on Reggie became kind of repetitive and that he was going too hard on a player that has plenty of problems outside of basketball.
In conclusion, Season One was a very interesting book and definitely surpassed my standards and expectations. It taught great lessons about work ethic, perseverance, and why the two are very important in life, no matter what you do. I also feel that it perfectly reflected the mindset and way of thinking of Kobe Bryant, and I definitely understood the message he was trying to convey in his book. I would give Season One a 5/5 stars for these reasons, and would recommend this book to any teen interested in basketball and looking to get their hands on a quick read this summer.