Senior year is supposed to be easy, but for Ryan Dean West, there are no guarantees. Ryan Dean finds himself as the rugby team's new captain and stand-off - the position once played by his lost friend, Joey. Plus, somehow he's inherited as his roommate Sam Abernathy, a twelve-year-old cooking whiz with extreme claustrophobia and a serious crush on Annie Altman, Ryan Dean's girlfriend. And Ryan Dean has his own problems, too - he's haunted by things from his past that he can't escape, fear of losing Annie, and the fact that sometimes the uncontrollable force of friendship moves under its own power. Andrew Smith knew ever since his days as editor of his high school newspaper that he wanted to be a writer. After graduating college, he experimented with journalistic careers - writing for newspapers and radio stations - but found it wasn't the kind of writing he'd dreamed about doing.