Stand-Off

Description

Senior year is supposed to be easy, but for Ryan Dean West, there are no guarantees. He may be the school rugby captain but his new roommate, Sam Abernathy, is a twelve-year-old with extreme claustrophobia and a crush on Annie Altman, Ryan Dean's girlfriend. And Ryan Dean has his own problems, too - he's haunted by things from his past he can't escape, fear of losing Annie, and the fact that sometimes the uncontrollable force of friendship moves under its own power. A laugh-out-loud story of heart and hope.

Andrew Smith always wanted to be a writer. After graduating college, he wrote for newspapers and radio stations, but found it wasn't the kind of writing he'd dreamed about. He bounced around the world before settling down in Southern California as a teacher of at-risk teens, married, and moved to a rural mountain location where he lives with his wife, two children, two horses, three dogs, three cats and one irritable lizard named Leo.