Title: My Life, the Theater, and Other Tragedies
Author: Allen Zadoff [website] [twitter] [facebook]
Genre: Contemporary
Publisher: Egmont USA  [http://www.egmontusa.com/]
Format: Paperback
Source: Publisher
Parental Advisory: death, language
Teachable Moments: dealing with grief, abandonment, self-acceptance

“I’m on the catwalk trying to hang and focus the rest of the lights, but I keep thinking about it.  I don’t understand how I can run around twenty-fie feet in the air and handle dangerous electrics, but when it comes to girls, I’m Chicken Little.”

Summary (from the publisher):
Sophomore Adam Ziegler thinks the best way to live is behind the spotlight.  Since his father died two years ago, Adam has retreated into the world of high-school theater, ultimately finding his place in the world up on the catwalk, running the spotlight.  But then a young actress, Summer, appears in his view.  Instantly smitten, Adam is determined to win her over.  But to do so, he’ll have to overcome his fears, defy his best friend, and break his school’s golden rule:  Techies and actors don’t mix.

Opinion:
Once again Zadoff makes geek chic.  In My Life, the Theater and Other Tragedies he focuses on a young man, struck by tragedy, who languishes in the lower levels of his high school’s social hierarchy.  Adam, a theater geek, is a techie who has embraced the light.  No!  Not that light.  He likes to design how light is incorporated into school productions — flash lights, spotlights, any and every kind of shiny bulbous thing he can find he’s trying to make it work on stage.

So here’s the situation, the Techies and the Actors are akin to the Sharks and Jets.  Never the two shall meet.  If they do those who partake of the other side are immediately relegated to outcast status.  This doesn’t bother Adam so much because he’s already kind of set out on his own.  Since his father’s death he’s distanced himself from pretty much everyone in his life. Only his best friend Reach has been able to force his way into maintaining some semblance of a relationship.  But then, in the midst of the school’s annual theater production the ultimate foe and the ultimate girl make themselves present in his life as well.

Now Adam is faced with the challenge of not only working with a counterpart that knows much less about lighting design than he but he’s also starting to have feelings for the new girl on stage.  A girl who is, gasp, an actor!  You see the rub right?  Well let me add a little bit more complexity to it all.  Said counterpart also wants the girl.  It seems more because of the challenge (and because it takes her away from Adam) than for the fact that he really likes her as a person.

Zadoff excels at creating a diverse cast of characters.  In My Life there are boys and girls of a variety of ethnicities as well as ages and sexual orientations.  What’s more, in building this group he strengthens the story by shying away from focusing on the differences.    It’s just a typical day in an ordinary US high school with a variety of people.  The only way I became aware of different characteristics is by way of the small details (like speaking of Reach’s mother’s Indian cooking) that I was able to discern heritage.  I liked that this is not a story *about* diversity, it’s not the point.  It is a story that *has *diversity*.

The plot was simple and, unfortunately, at times lacked depth.  I wanted so much more from the story about Adam’s father’s death yet the bulk was spent on his growing relationships at school.  While I understand that these relationships were intended to be the way by which Adam coped and started to overcome death some additional exploration of the latter would have pleased me.  For example, looking deeper into how to work through the grief of losing his father, how to better relate to his mother who was dealing with her own acceptance, how to reconnect with his brother who had disappeared and how to better communicate and interact with his friends and peers.   Everything meaningful seemed to be viewed at about 50,000 feet and with so much great material to work with I would have enjoyed more.

The only place that peripheral focus really worked for me was in the romance of the story.  Given the feud between the Techies and the Actors it made sense that Adam and Summer were circling each other tentatively.  Neither wanted to upset the apple cart but both were definitely interested in each other.  The development of their relationship was based on a mutual love for the theater and a desire for the school production to be a success.  Their time together then became Adam’s entre back into the social stratosphere.  I found that awkward balance and nervous energy created a realistic feel to this portion of the story.

My Life will appeal across gender and popularity lines.  It will give teens enough to chew on without banging them over the head with a preachy story.  It’s got sense of humor, emotion and no shortage of fun twists and turns.