The Rise and Fall of Derek Cowell

Derek Cowell, 13, lives an unremarkable life until an accidental photobomb incident goes viral and makes him the hero of his school. Riding high on the attention, Derek and his best friend Steve begin to stage viral photos, culminating in a big plan to make an optical illusion video of the two of them “skywalking” on the roof of an abandoned train station at night. With new classmate Riley as their videographer, the plan backfires when Derek’s fear of heights causes him to panic. When a video of Derek’s panic gets leaked, his newfound attention turns to shame, and he threatens to leak Riley’s own secret that she is living with foster parents. When Riley subsequently goes missing, he knows where to find her: the train station. Once he persuades her to return home, he confronts Steve about the video, discovering that it was Derek, himself, who “butt-shared” his own humiliating video after all.

A typical preteen novel with an Internet-era twist, The Rise and Fall of Derek Cowell is a story that combines slapstick comedy, youthful image-consciousness, awkward romantic relationships, wacky coincidences, and well-placed pathos in almost equal measure. Derek is truly likable, despite his faults, and he narrates the story with wit and honesty in a tone that ranges from sarcastic to mocking to earnest. His descriptions of his three very intense and diverse sisters is hilarious, and his budding romance with Denise (whom he meets at an animal shelter where he and Steve are trying to stage funny cat photos) is as innocent and awkward as expected.

Particularly well-constructed is the scene of Derek’s rescue of Riley from the rooftop during which he offers this gem, leaving the details of Riley’s family life to the reader’s imagination:

Then she told me a bunch of stuff about herself and her family and I could see why she might not want to go around broadcasting some of it. It’s her business, so I won’t say any more about it, but it put her in a completely different light.

One detail stands out as being a little contrived, and that is Derek’s treatment at the hands of the law after he is caught trespassing at the train station (Steve and Riley escape before the police arrive). His parents are forced to hire a lawyer to try to keep him from detention and manage to get him community service as an alternative (where he encounters Riley who is also doing work for an unknown infraction). It seems unusual that a minor trespassing on an unused public property, where no damage was caused, and where police were aware of his mental state, would lead to charges being filed. Nonetheless, this is a minor detail and does not break the chain of surprising events that upends the life of an otherwise unremarkable teen.