Gut Check by Eric Kester Book Analysis

Wyatt Parker goes from the sideline mascot to the starting right tackle in the realistic fiction Gut Check by Eric Kester. Throughout the novel, we dive into Wyatt’s life. He lives in a beach town where poverty has hit his home ever since his parent’s divorce. In the town of Grayport, there was extreme poverty and many people in the town relied on the food pantry for food. Wyatt’s town, Grayport, loves their high school football team. Wyatt’s dad was the star quarterback in high school, and now Wyatt’s brother is the quarterback. Wyatt feels as if he was stuck in his brother’s shadow; this made Wyatt feel pointless. Wyatt ends up training the whole summer, and he makes it on the football team. Wyatt finally gains popularity when he makes a fantastic catch to win the game. Later in the novel, Wyatt gets his town a big check through ESPN, which brings the town out of poverty from the Red Tide. The Red Tide is when there is a rapid increase in algae and the water becomes bloody and the fish become uneatable. The novel takes us through a timeline of Wyatt’s life, from when he was a nobody to becoming a popular kid.

I enjoyed reading the book because of the dark humor and relatability; however, it would be much better as a movie. Putting the storyline on paper serves as an injustice for the story. The book on paper simply doesn’t make a big wow, whereas, a movie would really help strengthen the storyline and make the book more imaginable. The town was going to have a football game with ESPN filming which would provide the town with a lot of money. However, Wyatt’s brother was the starting QB but had a concussion, he felt too bad not to play so he was going to play through the concussion, this made Wyatt nervous. So his best friend found out ‘a natural’ cause could cancel the game and they will still give them the money. My favorite part was reading about how Nate, Wyatt’s best friend, exploded a whale that washed up on shore to postpone the ESPN game and still get the money! 

The book was super realistic in the fact that it provided relatable humor and inappropriateness. It was written only a few years ago, so the jokes were relatable. The book’s length, however, annoyed me; it was almost 300 pages about a football team and a beach town. It felt very stretched out, and a lot of details were extra and unnecessary. Such as, when they took half of the chapter to explain Wyatt’s mom’s chocolate dessert. The novel was exceptionally violent in its language, surprising but making it feel more natural and realistic. In some cases, he refers to how he felt with a girl on his lap which would be deemed inappropriate to others. I was impressed with the writing based on the fact that it was written from Wyatt’s perspective.

I would not recommend this book to my classmates because it is very dry. I would’ve enjoyed the book being filled with more stories and exciting drama. Such as when he was hanging out in class it got very interesting because I related to it from my experience in the classroom. I would’ve liked to have more of that kind of story in the book. However, it felt like it was just a timeline of events from Wyatt’s life. It also has the same mantra as a Disney movie or classic football movie; it was too predictable! In addition, the book went on and on about the same situations, which made me feel like I was reading the same chapter twice; like when he would go home to find his father drunk. In conclusion, the book was very predictable, dry, and stretched out.