Slider by Pete Hautman

David has an older sister who is a straight A student, and a younger brother who has sever autism.  He feels like he isn't good at anything, except competitive eating.  He can down a whole pizza in three minutes.  He follows other competitive eaters' careers, and when a memento from a famous hot dog eating competition comes available on a online auction website, he borrows his mother's credit card to bid on it.  He accidentally bids more than he planned, and decides to enter a major eating competition to earn money so he can pay back his mother.

This is another on my starred reviews list.  It got stars because David's relationship with his autistic brother is very sweet.  He is the only one in his family that really pays attention to his brother and figures out what he needs.  That part of the book I enjoyed.  The descriptions of the competitive eating, and David's training to expand his stomach and shove pizza down his mouth as fast as he can, was hard for me to read.  I am someone who is really sensitive about healthy eating and all of that I found rather revolting.  I could see how a 5th grade boy might be fascinated by it, and I will probably recommend the book to that demographic. (2017, 272 p.)

This past week I was listening to this and The Class Town Game, and I didn't really like either of them very much.  I was glad to move on to Threads of Blue, which I enjoyed better.