Autumn Letters

Autumn Letters by Michael Frederick

Picked up this little nugget at the library because the cover looked new.
Frederick seems to be publishing independently. I could not find anything about him and his website would not come up.

Mark loses his mother to a car wreck. He is then quickly moved to another state where his estranged father lives. Mark lives with his father's grandparents. He makes new friends with the rough boy living across the street (Hurley). Mark begins to fit in when his classmates realize that he has a way with reading, writing and baseball.
Mark finds first love in Hubbard, a lonely girl living on a pig farm and looking for the cure for eye disease. Their love begins as Hubbard is in the county jail for burying her father on his pig farm and continuing to cash his state checks. Her father, like most of the other men in her family died prematurely from alcoholism. Hubbard cashes his checks in order to keep up with her medical research. Mark is in charge of bringing Hubbard her meals, as his grandmother is the meal supplier to those in lock up. Hubbard is soon released to a girl's home. She and Mark continue their growing friendship as Mark volunteers to help care for Hubbard's pig Johnny while she is away.
Hurley is a mean and strange boy. He is surely the leader as Mark is the follower. He has cruel intentions, abusive parents and a foul mouth. Mark likes the free and strong part of Hurley but not the side of him that is crude and abrasive.
Through Hurley and Hubbard, Mark learns about living in the present and being free to enjoy the moment by not living for the future or dwelling on the past.
The book entertained me and I could see that Frederick wanted to put across that 'freedom factor', living in the moment philosophy. Many times I felt like the book was really choppy and jumped around. He would try to allude to an upcoming event, but I would have a hard time following past to present. Well, okay I could follow, it just didn't flow really well.
Rating 3 I enjoyed Mark and Hubbard a great deal. I was surprised by feeling like I knew Hurley and then finding him to be a wholly different character at the end.
Rating PG 13 Teen sex (non descriptive), crude language