Once Upon a Time in America

There is a lot going on in this novel and not all of it is happy news. Drew and the other exchange students get to America and find right off some cultural differences as the size of the meal they order is larger than what they would get in England. Drew has to be Gaby for all the six weeks they are there and things go fairly well along those lines.

Drew and Maddie pull an interesting prank. Drew gets to meet Lance Armstrong (written before the problem he ran into) and does, as expected, some bike racing. Meanwhile, back in England, Drew's mother has surgery for her cancer.

Drew again faints after a race and his own mother's racing career might be over. Then, in something which is typical of the U.S., one of the students is shot while shopping at a mall. Other things happen quickly as it seems Drew's family might move to Germany, Drew is having problems with his chest area, he faints yet again after a race and then there's a shocking development at the end of the book.

Now, a brief explanation. Drew is not tg. Rhod is tg and plans to due the full routine of change. Drew appears female and gets tricked into wearing female clothes but he has no great desire to be a girl. What exactly is going on with him has not yet been explained.

There's a lot that's happened in this story, some of it bad, but it's still a good story.