A review by amodestreader
Season of Life: A Football Star, a Boy, a Journey to Manhood by Jeffrey Marx

slow-paced

1.0

If you’ve watched a Hallmark movie you’ll be familiar with the style of this book. With the depth of an above ground swimming pool and a level of insight that manages to make the Vice President look profound, Marx delivers a startling epiphany: perhaps coaches shouldn’t scream at their players? Be prepared to hear about the Bible and all its moral instruction (oh the joy!) actually provide the moral and ethical foundation for healthy masculinity. Also, because books do need to be a little bit long and increasing the font size just won’t cut it sometimes, prepare to rejoice in the splendor of a half baked narrative about the author’s father, and (for some reason) 9/11. Every idea in this book is derivative and stale. The only “innovation”, if one wishes to be  generous, is taking these stale ideas and wrapping them up in a sufficiently culturally conservative veil to make them palatable for the Bible-toting, football-playing audience Ehmermann seams to be focused on. So, if you do jot view the Handmaid’s tale as utopian fiction, I’d advise you to steer clear.

Note: I’m being about 2/3 facetious here, just because I really could not even with this book. The main character seems to want to pretend he’s Plato, when he’s… not.