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Seventeen-year-old Zeb Holloway works in his uncle’s repair shop and spends his weekends deer hunting in New Hampshire’s backwoods. He’s a backup quarterback on his high school’s undefeated football team, but he never plays. Why would he when T.T. Munroe- a walking highlight reel is around? That is when T.T’s injured a week before the state championship. Now Zeb has to start in the state championship game and as the leader of the team now, he has to get the whole team ready for the big game.  

With this great power, comes great responsibility; Zeb has to train hard and encourage his team to play their hardest. Through this practice and school, Zeb is given lots of hate and lots of encouragement from others. People would tell him that he would never be half the quarterback T.T. is, but his teammates would help him fill in the hole he’s missing and help lead the team to a championship. The team’s coach, Coach K., is a very strict coach that hardly talks but pushes the team to do their very best. He had talked to Zeb many times about how he isn’t as good as T.T, but he could still get the job done, but that is only if he pours his heart into the game.  

I enjoyed reading the first part of this book because it explains a lot about how the team is and Zeb is as a quarterback/student. Zeb is very respectful and I can relate this book to me because I also play football and am respectful to all my coaches and peers. Not only that, but I know that if my teammates ever need me for anything I would help them and they would do the same for me.  

 Now that everyone knows that he will be the starting quarterback, girls want to talk to him, and Zeb even gets a girlfriend. Zeb could barely find the time to be with Stella because of football, but the times he was with her, it wouldn’t be anything special. Their relationship wasn’t anything special and this caused conflict between the two. Stella realized that Zeb couldn’t spend any time with her because of football and so they broke up and Zeb was depressed. His mind wasn’t focused on anything, he was quieter and would barely talk to his family. His teammates and coaches helped him realize that they and the whole community needed him and he had to be 100 percent focused on the state championship.  

Zeb gets a phone call one day from a college recruiter and tells Zeb that if he plays his heart out, he could maybe get a scholarship. If I was in Zeb’s position and I had a chance of getting a scholarship, I would train harder and longer to get better and that’s exactly what Zeb did. Now finally it is the day of the state championship, the game everyone has been waiting for: Rumney High School vs. Merrymeeting high school. Rumney got to the field first and got in a huddle, the whole team got super hyped, but then when Merrymeeting stepped on the field, for some reason the whole team went silent. Zeb and others all knew it was something about the all green jerseys they were wearing that were intimidating for some reason.  

Zeb sensed nervousness in his team and couldn’t let that happen so he gave his team a pre-game speech and got them ready for kickoff. The game started and Rumney was on offense first meaning Zeb would have to start the game off strong. Zeb threw some short quick passes to start the game and try to find out how the defense played. There was one kid that everyone was scared of and that was the best player on the Merrymeeting football team and that was Manza. Manza was a muscular defensive lineman who looked like an NFL and his job was to tackle Zeb which got him nervous. Zeb thought of an amazingly long pass, but to perform it, he would need his offensive line to block Manza and buy him time to perfectly execute the play. The play worked and the team got a good amount of yards, but Manza got through the offensive line and hit Zeb so hard, Zeb felt unconscious. It was finally halftime so Zeb rushed into the locker room to get some rest. The whole team was quiet because they only had one good play for a touchdown but they were losing. The coach encouraged the whole team to not give up and so everyone tried to be into the game, but with Zeb kind of injured, they didn’t know what to do. After halftime, there wasn’t much happening for Rumney and in the end, they lost the game. It was okay for Zeb though because he played his heart out and was still able to get a scholarship.  

I would rate this book 5/5 stars because I could resonate with Zeb many times in the book and I found it interesting. I would encourage this book to anyone because it teaches you to not give up and to follow your dreams. 

Check out Game Change from the Newport Beach Public Library.