Pinned

Ivan Korske and Bobby Zane couldn't be more different--they come from different backgrounds, different lifestyles, and they have very different values and ways of looking at the world and dealing with people. Yet they both have the drive, determination, and commitment to self-sacrifice necessary to become a champion. In the end, though, only one will stand in the center of the mat with his arms raised in victory. Has each boy prepared enough? Sacrificed enough? Does each want to win enough? All the training, pain, running, and cutting weight ultimately comes down to a few short minutes on a wrestling mat--leaving one boy the victor, the other devastated. * Jr. Library Guild Selection* YALSA's List of 'Best Books For Young Adults' NomineePinned follows Ivan Korske and Bobby Zane, two high school seniors, as they embark on the most important winter of their lives in a quest for the New Jersey state high school wrestling championship.Ivan Korske is the pride of Lennings, a rural town tucked away in the farmlands of western Jersey, and the odds-on favorite to be crowned state champion in the 129-pound weight class. For Ivan, the stakes are impossibly high. A state championship fulfills a promise he made to his mother before she passed away nine months earlier and will, perhaps, stem his father’s continued withdrawal from life. But mostly, Ivan dreams of getting a scholarship to a college far from his dreary hometown. To him, anything short of the title is failure.In Short Hills, a wealthy town on the other side of the state, Bobby Zane protects his younger brother Christopher from the fallout of their parents’ impending divorce, while searching for comfort from Carmelina Carrillo, a girl from a depressed part of Newark. Despite the distractions from the intense pressures of adolescent love and the family’s breakup, Bobby realizes his quest for the coveted 129-pound state title may be his only hope for salvation.Pinned chronicles Ivan and Bobby’s season-long efforts toward overcoming forces within and beyond their control toward a title that only one of them can capture! Dealing with family problems, girls, and their own competitive natures, high school seniors Ivan Korske and Bobby Zane face each other in the final match of the New Jersey State Wrestling Championship.