The Club

Jaxson (Jax) and his best friend, Logan, are starting their last year in middle school. These grade eight students are looking forward to their extracurricular activities. Jax is a star trumpet player in the junior band while Logan is a star basketball player. Over the summer, Jax texted with Samantha, his first love interest. However, when he goes to the first band tryout, Jax meets a new girl, Liv, who also plays the trumpet very well. Jax feels a strong connection to her, even though he is meeting her for the first time since she is new to the school. They are thrown together by band rehearsals, and, soon, they get to know each other’s families. Strangely, they even look a bit like each other.

Jax confronts many challenges in The Club. He is an avid trumpet player who loves music. He is also a good friend to Logan who is obsessed with his basketball team. Although Jax tries to start a new relationship with Samantha, he faces difficulty when his friendship with Liv becomes more complicated. He has been raised an only child with very few relatives, and his one and only male role model, his uncle, has recently died. As a result, Jax craves the family relationships that exist in Logan’s family. When he discovers his possible sibling relationship with Liv, he is thrilled, but, when the sibling relationships expand, he is definitely conflicted. The change in his familial status is a struggle for Jax. However, his kindness, empathy, and courage cause him to adapt quickly to these new factors in his life.

Eric Walters has presented readers with a great deal of information about different kinds of families. In the case of Jax and Liv, their mothers chose to have their children by sperm donation. Other families, like Logan’s are very different. “Besides his sisters – three younger and two older – there was a mother and a father, two very barky dogs, a cat, and hamsters that took up three separate cages. His house was like a combination zoo, rodeo, parade, and science experiment.” (p. 6)

Readers come to know Jax and Logan, but minor characters, such as Samantha, are not entirely developed. Samantha’s jealousy over the Jax-Liv relationship is not fully explored, and her renewed interest in Jax is quite sudden. Several other issues are discussed in this novel: dating, first love, arts programs, community, school funding, computer hacking, parenting, social justice, friendship, family, and siblings.

There are scientific and technical issues introduced in The Club which might be challenging for some readers. Some issues related to conceiving children without a spouse include: sperm donors, artificial insemination, and genetic testing. Also, Liv’s mother is a computer security analyst whose hacking efforts in this novel could be considered problematic. When questioned about the legality of breaking into the genetic website, Liv’s mother says, “It isn’t like I’m breaking down a door… At worst I’m sort of jiggling the handle to see if it’s open.” (p. 153)

Eric Walters provides readers with insights into empathy and family relationships in The Club. “They come in all sorts of combinations and ways, but family is family.” (p. 144)