Full Tilt follows the journey of Blake, a 16-year-old young man with deep-seated trauma that dictates his actions and choices. Blake is “[c]onstantly studying, constantly busy, constantly shuttling […] with the regularity of a celestial clock” (3). He values safety and tidiness: He drives “with both hands on the wheel, positioned at ten and two” (21), and his bedroom has “a clean floor, a neat desk, and a host of evenly spaced travel posters” (27).

Much of Blake’s personality is set against that of his foil and younger brother, Quinn. They are opposites in many ways, and their respective journeys toward commonality form the plot of the novel. Blake, however, is the protagonist of the story. Blake relates the tale from his first-person, limited view with Quinn coming in and out of the narrative.

Trauma rests at the heart of Blake’s personality. Blake’s aversion to risk stems from an incident that occurred when he was seven years old: His school bus swerved to avoid an oncoming car and slid over the edge of a cliff, and Blake was the only survivor. Blake has a fractured memory of the

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