I jumped right into this short memoir by Arkansas author, Kevin Brockmeier and savored it like a summer rain. Don’t expect a thrilling plot line or story arc, but instead appreciate it for what it is—a year “in the life” sort of poignant narrative about seventh grade, a year filled with pimples and hormones and that’s gripping enough. Oh, the cringeworthy angst. Made me want to binge watch The Wonder Years. ( )

A very inventive approach to memoir with both the third-person narration and the specific focus on seventh grade. I laughed out loud a few times, and my heart ached for our young hero many more times. As a reader who grew up in a different generation, it was fun to compare his pop culture references to my own experience. The language was beautiful and precise though it often felt a bit overwrought. The pacing and cast of characters got chaotic, and the end was anti-climactic. Since "overwrought with emotion," "chaotic pacing," and "anticlimactic" would also fit into a description of my 7th grade year, perhaps these aspects are intentional, but they detracted from my enjoyment of the book. Still, I zipped through it and am glad I read it--it's always good to know you weren't the weirdest 7th grader in the history of middle school! ( )

This was a book I received in one of my Book Riot boxes. The description is "At age twelve, Kevin Brockmeier is ready to become a different person: not the boy he has always been—the one who cries too easily and laughs too easily, who lives in an otherland of sparkling daydreams and imaginary catastrophes—but someone else altogether. Over the course of one school year—seventh grade—he sets out in search of himself. Along the way, he happens into his first kiss at a church party, struggles to understand why his old friends tease him at the lunch table, becomes the talk of the entire school thanks to his Halloween costume, and booby-traps his lunch to deter a thief."
I really was not thrilled with this book. The cruelty of the 7th grade boys hit a little too close to home for me I guess. I found myself forcing myself to read and just hurry the f**k through. The problem wasn't the writing, he had great writing, it was the storyline. I felt too much like the bullying I experienced in 7th grade and I didn't want to relive those feeling through another character, my experiences were enough. I did force my self to finish, and the ending was a little better than the beginning. Junior High is a rough time, and this reminded me just how much. I suppose it is a credit to Brockmeier that his writing did resurface so many memories.
For additional reviews please see my blog at www.adventuresofabibliophile.blogspot.com ( )

I was captivated by the title of this book, A++ for a great title. It may have made me assume, though, that the memoir would be more of a humorous one, which it is not. There are definitely humorous aspects to it, but overall it's a sincere reflection on being in the seventh grade, some of the good things, but mostly the sheer awkwardness and cluelessness of it. I am one of those people who finds a lot of fictional depictions of embarrassing situations too viscerally embarrassing to bear, this skated right up to this line for me.

I thought it was an interesting choice to include a section that very literally lets the author dole out information about his life after the seventh grade, and it comes at the midpoint of the book so for the second half you are reading with a basic sense of the larger life events that will occur in the future. It was executed well, but I might have liked the book better without it. I'm really on the fence about this point.

Overall, it could have been a little tighter. The writing is very nice, the voice is extremely believable and rings really true, but it could have achieved the same results with a little less of it. ( )