Title: A Wind in Montana
Author: Mitch Davies
Publisher: Pensmith
ISBN: 0984390707
Pages: 276, Paperback, Hardcover & Kindle Edition
Genre: Young Adult
Reviewed by: Gary Sorkin, Pacific Book Review
Book Review
Mitch Davies writes in a vernacular and at a pace geared to a young adult such as a high school age audience in his novel A Wind in Montana. This clever work tracks the life of Rory, his main character, as he is faced with the peer pressures, personal desires, and all of the possibilities of choices that confront a high school student’s preparation for college. Thrown into the mix of Rory’s choices are his developing hormonal desires to embrace a relationship with his girlfriend. Both of their growing desires to get deeper into a relationship are carefully balanced with the influence of their parents, friends, teachers as well as their own privacy and scholastic ambitions. Inexperienced in “making out” at first, not knowing what goes through the other person’s mind, they experiment and learn many new sensations. This brings a fresh and stimulating turbulence to their lives, sometimes outweighing logical and reasonable decisions, yet always they act respectful and kind.You get to know Rory in a very straightforward way, as his character development is honestly revealed as being a normal teenager with normal teenage concerns. Rory feels pressured and manipulated by his teachers and counselors at school at first, then grows his independence as he matures in many ways. He learns to speak up about what he wants and hold steadfast in his individual beliefs and desires against all sorts of pressures.
It was very impressive to have such an insightful and realistic view of the decisions and values of young adults so well written in this book. Rory’s learning the ways of the world, having people’s interest’s conflict with his own plans – plans that aren’t fully made yet unfolding in front of him – make for a very captivating storyline. Moving ahead at an unhurried pace, Mitch Davies finds the time and words necessary to fully explain and enhance the events that shape the lives of his characters.
I found A Wind in Montana to be a healthy, entertaining, educational, inspiring and well conceived story worthy of being a book to grace all school libraries and family shelves. A good companion book for high school students on trips, or by their bedside tables, each reader is sure to take away many lessons of maturity and righteous values from reading what Rory has gone through, and how his decisions have taken form to shape his destiny.
