The School Story by Nick Gunther
The school story by Andrew Clements I think was ok, but not one of the best books I’ve read. I think the name of the book she’s trying publish, the cheater, is very cheesy. I mainly think that because of the “the” in the beginning. If it would have been just Cheater, I think would have been better, because that really bugged me throughout the entire book.
What I think Andrew Clements could have also done better is that the storyline is also the same also as all his others. Take Frindle, for example. It’s a kid who has a huge imagination that pulls off a huge task that would really never happen. All it is truly is different characters and a different setting. I honestly think that his publishing company saw the success of Frindle and tried to copy it. If that is the case, then I have lost some serious respect for Andrew Clements.
I think that the characters weren’t that bad, but the book was kind of written for girls. And I think that’s just because about 3 out of the 5 characters are girls, and a girl would probably relate to them more than a male my age would. But, if I were a girl, I would think that the characters would be a lot more relatable. It’s not that it’s a bad book; it’s just that I am probably not the target audience for this particular read. One quote that really caught my eye was on page 32 and it kinda spoke to me a about how hard it is to publish a book from what's being spoken. "zoe's voice was hard. "let me talk to Cassandra day." "Give it up Zoe, Cassandra is dead.
In case you are confused, Cassandra day is natalie's psuedonym, or false name. During this time of the book, Natalie is feeling very pessamistic on the fact of her book being published. (I hope you all notice how the book is about publishing a book, because I find that strangely ironic.)
Also, Zoe is trying to help her publish natalie's book, and she is trying to give one of those cliche pep talks that you can find in just about any children or young adults book. (Zoe ends up giving this speech several more times during the story, and it begins to be annoying after a while.)I also think this quote is important be ause this is where the plot sort of starts to get interesting, because the first few chapters are just setting you up with the characters and the setting, and I found that very apparent in the first 2 chapters.
If I were to rate ths book on a scale of 0-5, (0 being he worst book ever written In history and 5 being the most groundbreaking book that everyone in the world should read.)
I would rate it about a 2, and that's being very generous towards Andrew clements and his book. The reason I say that is because like I said before, it's either the book is juvenile, or I'm not the target age for the book. It might be a little bit of both, a little more of one more than the other, but still a combination of the 2. I imagine maybe a 5th or 6th grader (although I probably have the maturity of oa 5th or 6th grader.) would like this book a bit more than I do. For an example, when you see little pieces of the book scattered across the story, when I did see them, I thought they were just low quality pieces of writing that 15 year old could throw together in about 1 minute altogether. Yes, I realize that this is written by a 10 or 11 year old, but this just reminds me why kids cant publish quality books. we don't have the developed talent for writing books yet.
Truthfully, i would not recommend this book to anyone I know that's my age.
Sincerely,
Nick Gunther
