About Phillip (English Edition) [Kindle-editie] beoordelingen het boek quotes

Phillip Maceda discovers he’s a budding track star. Now if he can just figure out his abusive father. About Phillip explores the relationship between a teen and his father. Phillip Maceda is a computer nerd who likes to run for exercise. He’s been talked into joining the Park High track team. He likes to be by himself or with his faithful co-nerd Grant Haven. Phillip is nearly sixteen but wants to have nothing to do with learning to drive, thinking that public transportation is simpler, cheaper, and more ecologically sound. This doesn’t meet with his father’s approval, who insists he learn so he can take turns ferrying his younger brother to and from school. Adding to Phillip’s discomfort at home, he’s being hounded by Matthew Christiansen, a born-again fundamentalist Christian who figures Phillip is a good target for his anti-Mormon diatribes. At least Phillip can find refuge at the Boulder Valley Pet Store, where he works after school. Lance Maceda, Phillip’s father, is a self-made man who proudly runs a retail furniture store in Boulder. Unbeknownst to Phillip, Lance’s store is suffering because the big-box furniture stores in Broomfield are undercutting his prices. Lance’s business is in trouble, and with it the Maceda’s family income. Father and son don’t get along. Lance is hard-charging and by the book. Phillip would really rather stop and smell the flowers along the way. They finally meet head-on, with disastrous results. Several of the characters in this book are Mormon. I treat their Mormonism as simply another religion. In fact, a vague intolerance for Mormons is an underlying theme. Phillip has a run-in with Matt, an insecure bully who happens to belong to an extreme fundamentalist religion. Phillip does the things Mormon boys his age do, such as participate in "Young Men" activities, attending church, and scouting (which he hates, but his father is the scoutmaster). Watch as these themes play out against Phillip's relationship with his father.