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Loading... Front and Centerby Catherine Gilbert Murdock
This book and series was excellent. I would recommend it to an athletic girl. It was really perfect for me because right now I am struggling to make my own difficult decisions and it helped me with how to make decisions .very funny and inspiring. I read this book because I really liked Dairy Queen and the off Season so I just had to read the final one to see how it ended.  edspicer | Apr 28, 2013 |  I count myself among the fans who have patiently waited for the last book in the trilogy (Dairy Queen and The Off Season) and were rewarded with another touching, funny and inspirational book; perhaps Murdock will continue with more D.J. one day. (  ) lindap69 | Apr 5, 2013 | I got halfway though the acknowledgments page before I realized the book had ended the page before so the ending a little abrupt. It was a nice wrap up book. I really like how Murdock kept the main character DJ very real and authentic throughout the series. She goes through a lot of typical teen angsty stuff, boyfriend drama, family drama, school drama but maintains her underlying values and identity. ( ) akmargie | Apr 4, 2013 | A mostly satisfying end to the trilogy. I was very pleased with the result of the relationship theme. I just wish there were more D.J. Schwenk to come. On the other hand, I’m never wild about series that just keep going and going and going, so I suppose I’m also glad that Murdock knows when to call it quits. [Mar. 2010] ( ) maureene87 | Apr 4, 2013 | I think I'm extra emotional lately (thank you pregnancy!) because I seriously want to cry thinking about how sweet and fulfilling this book was to me! This series has been really interesting for me because while sports are all right, I'm not THAT into them, you know? I like them more than my husband... (This isn't saying much, if you know him. He thinks they're utterly pointless...) I've been watching curling during the Olympics, and I will watch parts of March Madness if I feel like it, but still. BUT, these books were like really good sports movies. Like Remember the Titans and Glory Road and The Greatest Game Ever Played. Not in the same way, but in that the sports are important (central, even) to the story, but they're not the WHOLE POINT of the story. So whether you like Football (meh) or Basketball (yeah) or Golf (no, thank you), the message is something on a deeper level—something moral or emotional or whatever. And that's what these books are like. [b:Dairy Queen|16178|Dairy Queen|Catherine Gilbert Murdock|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1166719842s/16178.jpg|564970] was very footbally and this one was very basketbally ([b:The Off Season|649514|The Off Season|Catherine Gilbert Murdock|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1176744169s/649514.jpg|635653] was less sporty... hence the name), but they're all about DJ Schwenk and her growth as an individual. And there's marked growth, which is refreshing in a series... (Sometimes you read those multiple book series about girls in high school, and you're like, "WOW. Are you EVER going to grow up??" *cough[b:The Princess Diaries|38980|The Princess Diaries (The Princess Diaries, #1)|Meg Cabot|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1266456915s/38980.jpg|2073907]cough*) I didn't really know where Ms. Murdock was going to take this story, but I was really happy with how it turned out. I think DJ made good decisions and stuck up for herself and it was just really good. YAY! I'm just sad it's over!! ( ) saraferrell | Apr 3, 2013 | no reviews | add a review
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Wikipedia in English
Dear Amazon Reader: The Dairy Queen series began with a dream and ends with a pizza. In late 2003, I had a dream about a girl playing football. As I'd been studying screenwriting for eight years, I immediately began to craft this idea into a script. Then, all too aware of my script failure rate, I decided to attempt a "practice novel" using everything I'd learned about character development, plotting, dialogue, and description. Today, I can offer aspiring authors this hard-earned advice: If you want to write halfway decent books, start by writing truly horrendous screenplays. I set Dairy Queen in Wisconsin, as I have family there and so can visualize the landscape, and I laid it out as a traditional three-act script, the only story structure I knew. I never intended to write a second book--I really love the vagueness of Dairy Queen’s ending--but when the publisher asked if I had a sequel in me, what could I answer but "Yes"? I love The Off Season's ending as well, but readers (may I mention how utterly fantastic the fan mail is?) wanted more. So--boom--I found myself writing a third. All of a sudden I had a trilogy. Given what I'd learned about college sports recruiting from the first two books, it seemed only natural to examine this in Front and Center, while of course continuing the saga of D.J. Schwenk's love life. So many stories have as their conflict "Will the hero(ine) get the scholarship? Will s/he get the love interest?" And of course you already know the answers on page 1. To me, a much more challenging story, both to read and to write, would be "Does she want a scholarship? And which love interest will be it be: the dreamboat who keeps breaking her heart, or the safe, fun guy who's not quite Mr. Right?" Call me old fashioned, but I like a little mystery in my narrative. Which is why I'm also not going to tell you how the pizza fits in. But it does. Really. Sincerely, Catherine Murdock 
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