The book PAYBACK TIME is a book about a high school journalist named Daniel (Mitch) True who wants to be the editor of his school newspaper and he wants go to Columbia University to study journalism. An important character in the book is Kimi Yon. She is the sports photographer for the school newspaper and is Mitch's newspaper partner. Mitch and Kimi worked on the sports section of the newspaper together throughout the school year. Another important character in this book is Angel Marchial. Angel is a football player who is a new kid at Lincoln High school and new to the football team at the school. The conflict in this story is Mitch and Kimi are trying to uncover a secret about Angel Marchial who transferred from a different high school. My favorite character in this book is Daniel (Mitch) True. The reason being is Mitch grew throughout the book. Mitch did not have things go his way all of the time but that did not stop him from continuing to try to uncover this story. Furthermore Mitch had a weight problem and throughout the book he lost a lot of weight because he did not give up or let anyone stop him. I believe that readers should take self motivation away from this book. I believe that this book gives good examples about self motivation. Furthermore readers should take away hope from this book. The reason being is that Mitch did not always have the answer to all of the questions that he had about Angel but he knew that at the end of the football season he would have some information to write a story.

I could relate to Angel Marichal. One reason is I have been in his situation about starting on the bench and eventually starting in the starting lineup. The second way I could relate to Angel is because of his quiet leadership. I understand at first why he did not want to be one that talked a lot. Furthermore I can relate to Angel being the one to sit at the end of the bench and not be getting into the game. The mindset that Angel had was remarkable because he played well but he only played a little and would not be warmed up when he was put into the game. This gave him a disadvantage because he was not warmed up and was not prepared to be in the games. 

I did like the book. The book was great and had very interesting themes. One strength of the book was the imagery. When I was reading the book I could imagine the football field and I could imagine the energy from the sports fans in the stadium. Another strength from the book was the action in the book. This book had a lot of football play by play detail and kept the reader interested throughout the book. One weakness from this book was the ending. The ending did not close the book properly. The ending could have been better. Another weakness in this book was the detail of certain places in the book. For example where Mitch had gone running was not described well and was hard to imagine what it would look like in real life. I would change the ending of the book. The reason being is the ending was not what I expected and could have closed the book better. The author left it up to the readers imagination but I would have liked to have a clear ending at the end of the book.