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Friday Night Lights by H. G. Bissinger, reviewed by Max R.

H. G. Bissinger delivers an exceptional story about a group of high school boys who live every waking moment devoted to the game of football, and a town that treats it as an almost quasi-religion. In Odessa, all they have is their Permian Panthers, and Bissinger teaches this when he describes the history behind the town.

In a small Texas town known as Odessa, are people who live for one thing -- Friday Nights, when they can see their beloved Permian Panthers play football. H. G. Bissinger takes you to a place where no dream can come true, until the Panthers step out on the field, and chants of “MOJO,” and “Goin’ to State in ’88,” fill the air. Set in a town where oil has makes fortunes as quickly as it takes them away, Bissinger's history of Odessa is what makes it real. When all you have is nothing, and the dream of going to State is everything, “hope comes alive on Friday nights.”

The reader will be able to learn what it means to sacrifice everything for something that you love. It also allows insight into some of the racial views of the earlier years of the south west, and the history of the “boom and bust cycles,” and the effect they had on the oil rigging states in the west.

Certainly one problem I found with the novel, was the constant change of scenery and time, which made it a bit confusing to completely understand what was going on in some parts of the book. Also, there are some parts of the book that may drag a little more than others, since the book is not solely based around the football games.

I’d give Friday Night Lights an over-all rating of four stars. Bissinger is able to show the devotion not only the players have to the game, but how the entire town devotes itself to this team is terrific. I feel Bissinger really portrays what it feels like to really want something when you have nothing.