A really solid three, more like three and a half stars. I got this at the library because Lucy likes watching the Disney Rescuers movie a lot, and at A really solid three, more like three and a half stars. I got this at the library because Lucy likes watching the Disney Rescuers movie a lot, and at some point I realized I had never read the book it is based on. That seems a little surprising to me, because it seems like the type of book I would have liked a lot -- talking animals, having adventures. Garth Williams did the illustrations, which made reading it for the first time almost uncanny, because of course it looked so familiar.
We have talking mice who set off to rescue a poet from a prison. The poet is Norwegian, and the prison is in an unnamed country, but I would guess it's maybe in the Balkans? I went back and forth over whether the author was intending to make a point about a particular country or political ideology -- Why is a poet in prison? Are they rescuing Václav Havel? Who is not Norwegian, but you see what I mean. But then maybe the country is simply nameless to create a generalized air of mystery about a dramatic prison built into the cliffs.
The oddest things, and I don't mean this as any particular criticism of the book, but as more of an observation that I don't think you'd see this in a book for kids written today, are the description of the relationship between the mouse Miss Bianca and the warden's cat, which read like something from a Hannibal Lecter book. The cat is like a sociopath obsessed with Miss Bianca. It's hilariously bizarre.
There is a whole series of these books, and my impression is that the Disney movie draws on some of the following ones for details. ...more
This exceeded my expectations, that's for sure. Ten stories, vaguely linked, set in a city (and it was fun to pick up on parts that felt like real citThis exceeded my expectations, that's for sure. Ten stories, vaguely linked, set in a city (and it was fun to pick up on parts that felt like real cities, I got a lot of London, New York, and Paris) with a bit of a magical realism thing going on, but not so much as to be annoying. Each story was relayed in a different genre style, and the author played this up pretty successfully -- I felt like the narrative voices were genuinely different while still making up a cohesive book. I saw a review that compared this to Italo Calvino's Invisible Cities meets Gattaca, and that seems very reasonable to me.
There's no real overarching plot, it's definitely more of an atmosphere piece (at least in the sense that nothing comes to a big reveal, although the links between the stories do provide some added significance to the events described). Being mostly a lazy person, I think I need Cliff Notes to really make all the connections between the chapters. ...more
Eh, this book reminds me of a genre (or sub-genre, whatever) that I hate -- when the book is about fraudulent spiritualists (for the purposes of this Eh, this book reminds me of a genre (or sub-genre, whatever) that I hate -- when the book is about fraudulent spiritualists (for the purposes of this entire review, I'll use "spiritualists" to mean the late 19th/early 20th century spiritualist movement) and then it ends up with an "is it or isn't it?" moment. This book is not quite like that. (view spoiler)[ It is about fraudulent spiritualists, specifically spirit photography, but our protagonist who is very adamantly opposed to fake spiritualists preying upon grieving people ends up with her own actual spirit visitor. I just ... you know, I'm too sciency to get behind an intellectual teen girl who talks to spirits. It probably doesn't help that with the brief synopsis I read, I had gotten the impression that this book was about an intellectual teen girl who sticks to her guns in the face of spiritualists. (hide spoiler)]
I liked the ambition of linking the Great War, the flu pandemic, and the rise of spiritualism ... but sometimes it felt like I was reading three separate books.
This was EXCELLENT. Summary: archeology, murder, and crazy people in Egypt. It's got not one, but TWO unreliable narrators, and usually I'm not that cThis was EXCELLENT. Summary: archeology, murder, and crazy people in Egypt. It's got not one, but TWO unreliable narrators, and usually I'm not that crazy about even one. This is so well done, though, the author is so successful at feeding you just enough clues that you can stay on top of both story threads and have a reasonable idea of what is going on.
It's also one of my favorite things, the archeological exploration during the 1920s (the Carter-Carnarvon excavation is going on in the background); I like to marvel at the insanity of people just digging up stuff on a whim with no method at all....more
This is a pretty straightforward detective story, but with the bonus that it takes place in Iceland, so, Iceland! A lawyer is asked to look into the mThis is a pretty straightforward detective story, but with the bonus that it takes place in Iceland, so, Iceland! A lawyer is asked to look into the murder of a German student, who it turns out was obsessed with the occult. That part was a little ho hum, gee, of course everyone involved with THE OCCULT ends up ritualistically murdered, but still, the Iceland background made a lot of the details much more interesting. I was hoping there would be even more of that -- it goes into a little background about witch hunts in Iceland, and even more information would have been terrific.
My biggest issue with this book is that the translation seemed extremely clunky. I kept wanting to sit down with the author and the editor and point out passages and ask "Look, is this really what you meant to convey here?" At one point, when faced with the graphic details of the student's death, the lawyer says "Yuck." Just like that, which to me, makes it almost a comic, or at least sarcastic, statement. If something is that horrific, do you say "yuck PERIOD"? There's another bit where someone is described as sitting, statue-like, like a statue (this lack of English synonyms happened a lot). And then there was a thing that seemed to involve a play on a word in Icelandic (a German is making a mistake about an Icelandic name), which maybe was supposed to indicate something, but it either needed to go away completely or get some exposition about what it was revealing. ...more
I'm not sure how to rate this, because this book was hilariously hack. It was a quick, fun read in a high camp sense. I wonder if anyone has ever doneI'm not sure how to rate this, because this book was hilariously hack. It was a quick, fun read in a high camp sense. I wonder if anyone has ever done a graphic novel version of this (the fact that I'm not even interested enough to look this up probably says something), because it seems like the kind of thing that would work even better with visuals, the Edwardian guy gaping at the Morlocks swarming all over London with an "OMFG!" look.
So yeah, it's a sequel to The Time Machine in which the Morlocks come back to London, and then ... you know, have to be stopped from their nefarious plans. There is also a submarine (which was confusing because where is it going to go?). It's a book where all the action just happens ... there isn't a lot of why involved, and what is there is delivered in goofy expositions.
But still, it was fun and moderately interesting to see some landmarks of science fiction come together -- clearly The Time Machine continues to be influential, and this book came about in the early days of steampunk so it does feel like it connects some dots if one is into that.
I also liked this quote, from the protagonist, who is one of the guys who was at the dinner in the Wells book where the inventor tells his story, and is then walking home in this book where he gets suddenly caught up in the Morlock invasion. Because who expects that, right? Anyway:
"The problem with secret knowledge, I mused bitterly, is that no one ever wants to tell you any of it." So I think it's clear that Jeter is in on the winkingness of it all....more
I read this a couple of months ago, and just now saw it was still on my To Read list ... granted time has passed, but it wasn't THAT long ago and yet I read this a couple of months ago, and just now saw it was still on my To Read list ... granted time has passed, but it wasn't THAT long ago and yet I remember very little of this short story collection. It's mostly getting three stars by default, because I don't remember finding it a chore to read or anything dramatic like that....more
The general plot is about a teenage girl who goes to live with her father, after having been kidnapped by her mother as a small child. Life with the mThe general plot is about a teenage girl who goes to live with her father, after having been kidnapped by her mother as a small child. Life with the mother was full of homelessness, drifting, abuse, and rough living, so this is one of those books about having to adjust to the weirdness (to the character) of the normalcy of family life with her father, his new wife, and their kids. Overall I liked it, and it's a short book so a lot of these issues are presented more like sketches. In some ways, this really worked -- it kept things moving and it felt comfortable having some questions remain vague or open-ended, it prevented it from seeming too much like a typical problem novel. At the same time, this very thing made the story-telling feel a little too rushed at times. The father lives in Florida, in a Greek-American community, and that was very fetching. ...more
Short and sweet, this was a solid read. It's a techno-dystopia story, to put it roughly. It's the kind of book where the whole thing is the reveal, anShort and sweet, this was a solid read. It's a techno-dystopia story, to put it roughly. It's the kind of book where the whole thing is the reveal, and I thought it was very well done. It opens with four girls living with two caretakers on a remote island, and then a new girl washes up on shore after a shipwreck. It's not exactly an Unreliable Narrator book, but it does artfully rely on some common assumptions to add a lot of its twists.
This is one of those tricky times when I think it was quite good for what it is, but what it is is pretty sparse. And it might be that this story was meant to be sparse, it does give the reader a lot of think over despite the brevity. It could be that making this a longer, more detailed work with more back story could actually be to its detriment, but it was also short enough that I never felt fully immersed in it.
SOMEONE I know recently read this and mentioned how distracting it was that one of the characters was Robbert with two Bs ... and I agree with that. But then I didn't see this review when I went back, so I have no idea who was talking about it. Mysteries!
I liked this a lot, it's a fairly straightforward story of a girl living in the French Quarter in New Orleans in the early 1940s. She wants to go to SI liked this a lot, it's a fairly straightforward story of a girl living in the French Quarter in New Orleans in the early 1940s. She wants to go to Smith, her mom is a prostitute in a brothel, and then there's a crime. CRIME. It has maybe a hint of a noir feel to it.
Probably my favorite thing about this is that it handled Josie's decisions -- good and bad -- in a way that felt believable and natural to the world of the story, as opposed to how it makes me crazy when I'm reading something and a character makes bad decisions that seem to simply exist for the sake of moving the plot into a conflict. In this book, it felt completely reasonable that a well-intentioned person in this situation would make some choices that weren't the best, but were still very understandable given the circumstances.
This felt like a book that I could see myself reading about million times over and over if I had owned it when I was a kid, because I love(d) stories like this that included a lot of very satisfying details and made a time and a place very tangible, almost mundane. Not boring mundane, more like pleasantly familiar mundane. And I am not really familiar with New Orleans brothels. I would have read it over and over and STILL not gotten what was going on with Patrick, though. :)...more
Ugh, I read this earlier in the month but forgot to write it up while it was fresh in my mind.
Time travel + teen romance, and it does a decent job of Ugh, I read this earlier in the month but forgot to write it up while it was fresh in my mind.
Time travel + teen romance, and it does a decent job of both, I was pleased to see. A little dystopia thrown in for good measure.
In some ways, it feels very now -- not in a good way, I mean "now" in the sense of what people who make money from publishing books think is hot right now - so the strong female protagonist (who makes plenty of self-depreciating one-liners), a little action-y, a little gritty but not too much, cute boys, THE GOVERNMENT, etc. Okay, nothing is wrong with any of those things, but it felt like a package to me. A package developed by company that does marketing focus groups. The time travel is nicely done and successfully pulls up the quality a bit.
I'm not sure why this needs to be a series, but it appears to be the first of one....more
This is a very short, sweet little book, and this is a strong three stars.
In a very loose sense, it's about a teacher who goes mysteriously missing whThis is a very short, sweet little book, and this is a strong three stars.
In a very loose sense, it's about a teacher who goes mysteriously missing while on a outing with her class of schoolgirls in the late 1960s. It's the kind of book where much more focus is given to how this impacts the girls in her classroom. It's a very internal book, presented from the point of view of one of the students, who observes the events leading up to the disappearance and then the reactions of the other girls, their parents, and other teachers. The language is clear and sets such a specific tone, it's all done very well.
There is something a bit odd about it. Given the events of the plot, that's supposed to be odd, and it's such a brief book, it's more like a sketch of the story. The author does such a good job of mimicking a voice from that time, it's almost eerie, you could really believe this manuscript was found in a vault. I'm pretty sure it's being marketed as YA, but I'm not entirely clear on who the intended audience is - it almost seems more like "adults who read YA" because I think it helps to be a little nostalgic for a certain kind of girls school story. Then again, I was also the teenager who passed over current books (well, I read them, just not over and over again) to hunt down the outdated teen adventures and romances that hadn't been checked out of my library in years, so maybe there are still those girls today.
I am in love with the cover art, the designer did a fabulous job of capturing the style of books for girls from that era, it's so impressive and I'm going to be extremely sour if they change it for the paperback. It really complements the time in which the book is set.
I'm not sure if it's some combination of the subject matter, or the Australian location, but it makes one think of Picnic at Hanging Rock. It's really only very vaguely similar.
And I'll put some comments about the ending under spoiler tags: (view spoiler)[ There's a very brief section at the end that comes back to the girls a few years down the road ... and you know, I really could have done without this. I think it ultimately caused some of the interesting things about the unknown elements of the disappearance to stall out. (hide spoiler)] ...more
This was so ridiculous it was almost sublime. It's a YA romance that lets you know right away that this is Serious Business. By page 9, there was moreThis was so ridiculous it was almost sublime. It's a YA romance that lets you know right away that this is Serious Business. By page 9, there was more earnestness going on than in all the other books I've read this year combined.
I'm going to cut the rest of this, somewhat for spoilers but mostly to spare anyone from being subjected to fact that I have the sense of humor of a 12 year old boy.
(view spoiler)[ So we've got two teenagers -- Wren, an only child whose parents are overly involved in her life, and Charlie, a foster kid who had a Tough Start in Life. This is very Important so I capitalized it. They fall in love, apparently instantly and from a distance, and then proceed to have an Extremely Earnest Relationship the summer after high school graduation. They go on very earnest dates and have very earnest conversations. You get the idea early on that these are two people who Feel More Deeply about things than other people.
Weirdly, a lot of what's supposed to be the big contrast, Wren's smothering/controlling parents vs. Charlie's sad childhood, happens in the far, far background. For someone whose big issue is smothering and controlling parents, they pretty much leave her to her own devices all summer. Charlie's backstory is much more legitimately sad (and I have to admit it's told in a very compelling way), but once it's out there, that's pretty much it.
What IS happening front and center is what I can only image is the author's Very Serious commitment to making sure teens know that one's sexual identity and expression is a normal and healthy part of life ... which is not a bad message, but again, the presentation is so earnest and sincere and heartfelt that it reads more like a joke. Several times, while on a very sincere date earnestly talking about things like "do you think trees have souls?" the narration, out of the clear blue, lets us know that Charlie becomes hard. (That's the exact phrase used.) It's sporadic enough that I never got to the point where I was expecting it, but by about the third time, it made me laugh so hard I was snorting on the train during my commute. Then I started to insert "earnestly" into the text at random, so Charlie could get earnestly hard. For real, I was guffawing in public.
Taken as an individual scene, a lot of this stuff would work as solid writing about intimacy and specialness, but my problem with it is that it's relentless. You're never, ever, able to lose sight of just how specially in lurrrve these two are.
On the plus side, I was happy with, and even more interested in, some of the secondary characters. And the end raced to this Teen Soap Opera Ending, which set things up so that you'd think it was going in one Teen Soap Opera direction, and then it completely turned it around and went in a different Teen Soap Opera ending, and that was actually impressive. I was leaning more toward two stars, but realized the book did keep me fairly well engaged all the way up to the end. (hide spoiler)]...more
This was entertaining enough, set in a near-future in London when things are just a little more Big Brother-y than they are now. A bunch of kids livinThis was entertaining enough, set in a near-future in London when things are just a little more Big Brother-y than they are now. A bunch of kids living in a squat and making remixes and mash-ups of films come under the scrutiny of corporations trying to enforce their copyrights. Then they band together and put on a show in the barn fight the system and say a lot of things about art and creative freedom.
It's nicely written in general, perhaps a little meandering and the characters are maybe a little too likely to break into a long expository monologue about fair use regulations. Aside from that, it's easy to like the characters and be interested in what they do. I liked that it depicted people engaged in activism and social justice work in a positive and serious way. Serious in the sense that their convictions are shown as valid, as opposed to meaning they had no fun at all. A lot of their activities seemed extremely fun.
One thing that wasn't working for me personally is that even though I agree with the book's sentiments on the state of copyright (I think it's forcing an outdated system to try to manage a new technology to the detriment of everybody involved), the choices the author makes about what supports this stance were ... odd, to me. It's like he tried to fit every possible justification in there, and at some point (well, it was a point toward the beginning), it turned the corner from "convincing argument" to "okay, now you're just rambling."...more
I've giving this three stars for general "good book"-ishness, and one additional star for taking a really thoughtful and thorough look at a specific, I've giving this three stars for general "good book"-ishness, and one additional star for taking a really thoughtful and thorough look at a specific, little known, aspect of cultural history.
Overall, it's about the football programs at Grambling and FAMU, two historically black colleges and universities, and particularly the year that these two teams met in the Orange Blossom Classic, in the middle of the era of the struggle for civil rights. The author does a great job of showing how segregated higher education and athletics relate to larger, more macro issues related to this time in history.
I will note that this is a book about football. There are some sports history books that I will recommend to people who aren't particular fans -- sometimes, the book is more about the social and cultural history, and the sport is a backdrop. Not so here. Unlike something like Friday Night Lights, where you don't need to have any special football knowledge or (as Wendy Burton tells me) even any football interest, this book assumes the reader has a pretty strong foundation of familiarity with the game, and can (willingly) follow a play recap without any background information. Which is totally cool, as a football fan, I appreciate a book that goes into the game on a deeper level instead of glossing over the more subtle parts.
I would especially recommend it to sports fans who get very interested in "sport and society" topics (I always think of it with that term, because that's the name of the class at my college)....more
This is extremely endearing, and one of the best middle readers I've picked up in a while.
Bo is a little girl who lives in a small mining town in AlaThis is extremely endearing, and one of the best middle readers I've picked up in a while.
Bo is a little girl who lives in a small mining town in Alaska in the 1920s. The book is essentially a series of winsome anecdotes about various things that little kids get up to in a small mining town in Alaska ... and it's just so nicely written.
It's been compared a lot to the Little House books, and I think that's fairly understandable in a few ways. The author, a native Alaskan, has said that some of the episodes are based on family stories. There are a lot of "this is how things worked in Ye Olden Days" explanations of what's going on, handled in a good way - they're straightforward, a kid can understand them, and they support the story. In terms of reading level, it feels right about par with Little House in the Big Woods/Little House on the Prairie, so it would work well as a read aloud for kids starting about age 4, and realistic for slightly older kids who are reading on their own. Unlike the Little House books, the Eskimo members of the community get a lot of airtime, and come across as individual people as opposed to a vague group of Eskimos. ...more
This is one of those books that I liked a lot, and I was very, very into when I was reading it, but I still have some issues (hmmm) with some major asThis is one of those books that I liked a lot, and I was very, very into when I was reading it, but I still have some issues (hmmm) with some major aspects of the story.
One weird thing (unrelated to my issues) is that I was debating whether to start this, or The Goldfinch first, and I ended up with The Goldfinch, so when I read this it was awesomely surprising to find another Polish character, this time a little kid, which was like encountering another manifestation of Boris. Although in a completely different book. I'm always mystified when that happens, when I end up reading two very unrelated books that share something that I would otherwise find very unique.
In this book, the main character, a teenage boy named Seth, wakes up after an accident (essentially, whatever) in a bizarre version of his childhood home, and then has to cope with that and figure stuff out. For a while, the story cranks along alternating between his strange new world and his memories of what was going on with his life up to that point.
My other comments are more deeply entwined with the plot twisty parts. (view spoiler)[
Starting with the end ... I'm a fan of the open ending, but this was challenging for me because it also had a very open middle. I would have preferred less openness somewhere in the book. I felt like Ness was trying to spin out some different interesting possibilities for Seth's reality, but the effect was only moderately successful for me because it was hard to get too emotionally connected to any particular possibility because it just didn't seem to matter. I needed a little more to hang my hat on.
I was also a little surprised that the plot was so Matrix-y, in a way that made me keep waiting for more of either an obvious homage OR a huge departure, neither of which happened. I almost feel that the most likely scenario is that the author has never actually seen The Matrix, and one day he will watch it, and be mortified.
On a much more basic plot level, I was confused about the very, very tiny number of coffins located outside the facility. I get that there wasn't enough room, but only two? That seems like it wouldn't even be worth the effort to run the infrastructure out to the homes. Something like 5% would make more sense. (hide spoiler)]
And a plus, I found a lot of it super, super suspenseful! I would literally gasp at the end of a chapter. The atmosphere was extremely creepy. I liked the world, and I liked almost all of the characters. ...more
I enjoyed this book, and probably would have enjoyed it even more if it was the sort of thing I liked.
Right away, in the prologue even, it was apparenI enjoyed this book, and probably would have enjoyed it even more if it was the sort of thing I liked.
Right away, in the prologue even, it was apparent that this was going to venture a little too much into magical realism for my taste. It's a contemporary American setting, with an overlay of fairy tale ... it's a combination that I'm always wary of because it can get really twee really fast. Too much potential for whimsy. Too easy to explain away whatever isn't quite coming together in the plot with a little fairy magic.
So, this is narrated by the ghost of Jacob Grimm (of the fairy tale Grimms), who is in communication with a young kid living in a small town. It's like a creepy Footloose Midwestern small town, it appears. The kid, for various reasons but including the fact he hears voices from the dead, is a bit of an outsider. The gist of the story is a mash-up of "what I did on my summer vacation" and "little town, big secrets," although I think the author dropped the ball a bit on the secrets part.
Ghostly Jacob Grimm did win me over early on. It's pretty much exactly what you want in a ghost narrator -- he generally knows enough to keep you informed, but he's not so omniscient that it ruins any suspense. The kid is okay. I found his little girl pal, Ginger, mostly annoying, but she had some moments.
The story definitely hooked me. By the end, I was appropriately sad in the sad parts, and touched by the touching parts. I was impressed that it exceeded my expectations, but I'll mitigate that with a reminder that I had low expectations going in.
This book is getting a fair amount of buzz, and it's on the National Book Award longlist ... I get why people are digging this, I do. It has a distinctive voice and style, and a good combination of humor mixed in with some serious themes. My major complaint is a spoiler, so (view spoiler)[ I wasn't convinced at all that the device of the modern fairy tale complete with the ghost of Jacob Grimm was the best match for a story that turned out to be about a child kidnapper/murderer. For me, at least, it watered that part of the story down too much. Yes, it was creepy, but campfire ghost story creepy as opposed to Cleveland creepy. And it's obvious the book tried to set up the missing kid theme early on, with the mentions of the mother still waiting for a child who has been missing for years, and a runaway in a nearby town, but that felt very tacked on,, it never felt like the missingness of missing children was really part of the narrative until it was front and center. There were some red herrings that weren't handled well - the deputy cop who seems creepy, and then turns out to be ... creepy in a different way? Why? (hide spoiler)]
I think this is one of those books where the dreamy tone is impressively unique and charming, so much so that it masks the fact that the underlying architecture of the book is a little wonky. ...more
The title is a little forced, but I can see how the author simply had to. It's not the kind of thing I could resist. The tie to the actual case is a lThe title is a little forced, but I can see how the author simply had to. It's not the kind of thing I could resist. The tie to the actual case is a little weak, in the charge read in court, the devil is alluded to, as was typical for an 18th century murder.
I'll also note that this is the third book I've read in recent memory that was about a murder trial, and claimed to be America's first murder in some way, the first sensational murder, the first murder case to play out in the media, whatever. None of them even mentioned each other.
Overall, this was interesting. The murder in question took place in New York City in the late 1700s, the body of a young Quaker woman was found in a well, and a resident of her boarding house was charged with her murder. The guy's brother was an architect who had worked for both Hamilton and Burr, and I believe both of them owed him money, so he ended up with two totally famous lawyers. It's a great picture of the city at that time, there is a lot of information about what daily life was like, and how Hamilton and Burr's political activities were connected to what happened in the city in general.
I usually really like Paul Collins's writing voice, and I mostly did here, but there was one weird stylistic thing in this book that kept putting me off. He'd include an italicized statement every once in a while to indicate something wasn't a directly quote, but something that was like to have been said. It was very odd and it tripped me up every time, because I couldn't figure out who was supposed to be saying what to whom. None of them were things that needed to be included at all.
I'm giving this a very solid three stars, like a strong three and a half. ...more
Meh? This book felt to me like it was trying to be a John Green book (witty, attractive, outsider characters) that ended up a little on the generic siMeh? This book felt to me like it was trying to be a John Green book (witty, attractive, outsider characters) that ended up a little on the generic side. It was okay, but I can't imagine remembering anything in particular about it in three months.
Our main character is a teenage boy who is a sports star in high school, and then has a car accident that means he can no longer play sports, and now he's going through a bit of an identity crisis. He doesn't feel like he fits in with his old crowd of friends (stereotypical drunk, brainless jocks who date stereotypical brainless cheer squad members), and ends up in a crowd of quirky, geeky people. He also starts dating a new girl at school (she is quirky), and then drama happens.
Some aspects of this were quite enjoyable. A lot of the dialogue was snappy and sometimes it really hit with the humor.
For my taste, the drama was kept too mysterious and then the reveal felt too rushed, and I didn't have any real emotional investment in it because all the information came at the very end.
Philosophically, one thing that didn't sit well with me was the presentation of his former crowd - the popular jocks on student council. I kept waiting for the book to delve into this in a more complex way, but that never happened (and there were even things that would make me think "a ha, now is when we get to this!" ... but they never panned out). So we've got this group of popular kids who rule the school, so to speak, and a lot of this book is about the protagonist going through a very difficult experience (the car accident) and discovering, as a result, that his friends are essentially dumb jerks with whom he doesn't have much in common. The big disappointment for me was that this was presented in such a monolithic way. EVERY one of these kids is a dumb jerky jock straight out of a John Hughes movie, and that felt so off to me. Not one of them has other stuff going on? Not one of them has complex feelings or reactions or reasons for their actions or lack of action? I roll my eyes at this in a book that pays a lot of attention to the importance of learning about people as individuals -- but that's a luxury reserved for the outsider characters.
And personally -- this isn't a criticism of the book, but a comment on how I read it -- it kept surprising me that the kid's former persona as the prom king BMOC was based on his being the captain of the tennis team. The tennis team? Maybe it's a Southern California thing. At my high school, that was something for football players, or hockey players, or lacrosse players ... but tennis? That would have been a non-characteristic for a student at my school. I'm pretty sure we had a tennis team, but being the captain of it, or even on it, wouldn't have made someone a jock or a geek or anything, really. It was just randomly there....more
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