Review of "Unstoppable," by Tim Green

 Review of

Unstoppable, by Tim Green ISBN 9780062089571

Five out of five stars

Rags to riches to rags and then to riches

 Harrison is a boy with a powerful body that has been in foster care for a long time. Unfortunately, he is in the home of a man that regularly beats him. Finally, in retaliation, Harrison strikes back and accidentally kills the man. Fortunately, another man on the farm supports Harrison so that he faces no serious criminal charges.

 To his surprise and initial disbelief, Harrison is placed in a superb foster family where the adults are kind, caring and supportive. He thrives in this environment and becomes an unstoppable force on his junior high football team. A routine football injury is at first disregarded but then flares up to the point where he is given medical attention. The attending physicians discover that he has cancer in his leg and the only cure is amputation. At first, Harrison is devastated, but once he is given a titanium replacement, he goes back on the field and the book ends with Harrison running down the field covering a kick-off.

 This is a great book for it is about despair, finding hope and a purpose, to be struck down with illness and then coming back and achieving once again. Written in Green’s superb style, he took much of inspiration from knowing cancer survivors and understanding the difficulties, both physician and mental, that they went through. It is a sports book contained within a book about life.