Friday Night Lights by HG Bissinger

I choose to read this because I like football. I did see the movie but that was a determining factor in reading this. I chose to read this because I like football and I wanted to read a good story about one season in the life of a football team. But that wasn't this book. Bissinger is an amazing writer. He won the Pulitzer Prize for a good reason. The prose flowed like poetry. But there was too much about the town and politics of Odessa, Texas. I wanted more about the team, the games. Bissinger gave away the ends of the game too soon. He's not a sports writer. But I wanted to be taken through the game.
If you've never experienced a high school football game in a town where football is king then you might wonder why an entire town would go to a high school football game. Why a town would treat 16 & 17 year old kids like gods. And those are the questions Bissinger is trying to answer. Not how 30 odd kids survived a season and made the playoffs. But what compels adults to crowd into a stadium on a September Friday night and watch said kids play against other kids. Friday Night Lights examines that phenomena. Gives us outsiders a peek at what it's like to live in Odessa, Texas and cheer for the Permian Panthers.