Sucktown, Alaska

March 1, 2017

Gr 9 Up-Eddie has screwed up. He partied too hard and failed his first semester of college in Anchorage, AK. To rectify his mistakes, he agrees to take a 12-month job as a reporter at the Delta-Patriot newspaper in the "unromantic shithole" of Kusko, AK, located in the remote Yukon Delta. He lives with his boss, Dalton, and also helps Dalton take care of his sled dogs. All the while, Eddie plans to hide his expulsion from his father and brother until he can reenroll. There's little to like about Kusko other than Dalton's sled dogs; Eddie's neighbor friend Finn, who sells weed; and his love interest, Taylor, an overachieving high school senior. Soon, Eddie is flying out to neighboring villages to do reporting and begins to sell weed as a way to make money to leave Kusko sooner than planned. Each deal gets progressively worse, and Eddie messes with the wrong person, who has friends on the police force. Eddie wisely resolves to quit selling, but when Finn loses his job, Eddie makes an impulsive choice that lands him in big trouble. Dirkes sets the scene for an interesting story full of crass, realistic teenage boy humor. Fans of Sherman Alexie's The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian will be drawn to Dirkes's writing. The author effectively wraps up the narrative and its message about making good decisions. VERDICT A strong addition for collections in need of funny YA.-Adrienne L. Strock, Nashville Public Library

Copyright 2017 School Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

March 15, 2017
First in his family to go to college (and first to flunk out after one hard-partying semester in Anchorage), Eddie lands a job as a reporter in Kusko, Alaska, for a year--because what can go wrong in a remote town inaccessible by road? Eddie, 18 and white, grew up with Minnesota winters; in high school he wrote sports stories for the town paper, but Kusko (Alaskans will know it as Bethel) is colder and the work is nonstop. He's billeted with Dalton, his editor and boss (and also white), and tasked with feeding and cleaning up after the sled dogs. In return, Dalton teaches Eddie to mush and pays to fly in Eddie's beloved truck from Anchorage (there's nowhere to drive to). Eddie befriends easygoing Finn, a Yup'ik, pot-dealing neighbor, and pursues Taylor--she's Yup'ik, Italian, and Swedish--high school valedictorian, whose rebuffs prove more than embarrassing. Frustrated and bored, Eddie hatches a plan to raise money, quit early, and return to Anchorage: combine reporting duties with selling weed outside Kusko, but tall and blond--plus cocky, impulsive, and clueless about the drug trade--he's quickly detected by dealers whose territory he's poaching. (Set in 2010, the novel omits the state's complex legal history with marijuana, including legalization in 1998 for medical use.) If occasionally melodramatic, this coming-of-age debut is a sharply observed journey through seldom-explored territory. Raunchy, funny, fast-paced; for those looking to hook male teen readers, your work is done. (author interview) (Historical fiction. 14-18)

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April 1, 2017
Grades 10-1 When college freshman Eddie finds himself flunking out, he jumps at a chance to work in remote Kusko, Alaska, to prove that he can be a journalist. But after spending his time cleaning up frozen dog poop and being spurned by the local hottie, Eddie quickly decides that he made a mistake. Unfortunately, leaving takes money. Enter Finn, a local pot dealer with a proposition: for a percentage, Eddie can use his press credentials to fly around the region, dropping off product. It's a fool-proof plan, except that Eddie is a cheechakoa newcomer who doesn't know his head from his ass. With frank depictions of drug use and sexual content, Dirkes weaves a tale where the settinga bleak, frozen hinterland where tradition collides with modernityis the star. Part Twin Peaks, part Northern Exposure, this tale of youthful indiscretion is populated with a cast that is both hilarious and terrifying. Eddie himself is lovable and cringe-worthy, a rascal who gets himself out of trouble only to get into more.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2017, American Library Association.)

January 1, 2018
Kicked out of college in Anchorage after one semester, eighteen-year-old Eddie takes a year-long job with a newspaper in isolated rural Alaska to prove he's "ready to be a college student again"; instead, Eddie begins smuggling marijuana. Eddie can be an obnoxious horn-dog and is a pretty unlikable protagonist overall, but good setting details give readers a sense of the wide-open lonesomeness of the tundra.

(Copyright 2018 by The Horn Book, Incorporated, Boston. All rights reserved.)