Xavier's journey throughout the book has made him a more thoughtful, understanding and compassionate person. At the beginning of the book, all that mattered to Xavier was his love for rugby. He then met Nuala and things changed. By the end of the book, he realised that sports is not everything and that there are much more important things to life such as: family, friendship and love.

Xavier McLachlan is a champion rugby player. People judge him by his skill in the game and the fact that he is apart of the first fifteens; the most elite rugby team in the school. Just like the stereotypical high school sports hero, Xavier's life is a game revolving around rugby, mates and girls. He believes that when you play the game, you must give it everything and anything to win. He thinks his team mates on the rugby field are his best mates in real life and that the girls around him are the stereotypical girls he likes. It was the thing that mattered most to Xavier, his love of the game and the opinions of his friends. His way of thinking however, soon took a dramatic turn when he met a bizarre girl; Nuala Magee.

The formal was the night of all nights. It was a night you could show off your partner and prove you were someone. Astonishingly, Xavier, against his former way of thinking, took Nuala with him to the formal. By this time, Xavier really liked Nuala, and was hoping his mates would understand what he done. But to his surprise, he found that all his mates abandoned him when he needed them most. He could not believe that Scott, his closest friend, could desert him and leave him in a situation to choose between two groups. The only person who did help him out was Alex. From this, he realised how loosely the term 'friends' is used, and that he had only one true friend, Alex.

I think he has changed dramatically since the beginning of the book. At the start, he was very stereotypical about girls and the way life is. By the end of the book, we see that he now accepts and understands Nuala, and has learnt many things about life. His journey has been an exciting, dramatic and a distressing journey, turning him into a mature man with greater understanding on many things.

I believe that Xavier is a typical teenager living in our modern times. We are all living in a time when females are being treated more fairly and that tolerance for things previously unthought of are becoming accepted. Males must accept these things and become used to them.

Just by spending time with Alex, Xavier gained a lot of experience and knowledge about life. Alex had leukaemia and had been cut off from the world for most of his life. Because of this, Alex's way of thinking was different from anyone else's. He was not influenced into things by other people and was very emo

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Approximate Word count = 1113
Approximate Pages = 4 (250 words per page double spaced)