CATEGORY: Non-fiction, Pecha Kucha

Ned Vizzini was a hilarious stand-up comedian-like voice of humor and wisdom in this memoir published when he was right out of high school. His voice reads like a funny older brother telling stories and giving warnings about high school life.

I read an essay out of this when I was in high school and it then prompted me to read Vizzini's other books. As far as young adult memoirs go (and there aren't many of them), this book takes the cake. ( )

Ack - should not be compared to Holden Caulfield - this is funny, and Ned is just a little awkward, he's not depressed and he hasn't lost his sister and besides which, he's just plain adorable. Not quite as adorable as my teen son, but almost.

I must say, the layout was a bit annoying at first - there are these notes that resemble footnotes, but they're at the side, like the illustrations in the American Heritage dictionary. It didn't take too long to get the hang of reading them, though. After all, it's a quick and easy read. Too bad it's in the Bio section at the library - I don't know how many teens, esp. the 'reluctant readers' who would esp. appreciate this, browse there.

And it is a tiny bit dated, lots of stale pop culture references and no cell phones. But I thoroughly enjoyed it and will look for more by the author. ( )

Written by a NYC teen. This book is based on journal entries the author kept while in junior high and high school. Each humorous essay focuses on some event in his young life such as preparing for the SSHAT test, his first girlfriend, and getting drunk. A good book to point up "writing what you know." Ned is a regular kid, a nerd even, who's straight and narrow but ocassionally gets caught up in hi-jinx or stupid decisions. Booktalk: read pp 128.

I'd recommend this to my friends for sure. This book is brutally honest about what it's like to be a teenager and how being in high school has its up-sides and down-sides as well as awkward moments. But it's really straight-forward about how life works in your teenage years and offers some great advice. 5Q4P The cover art is awesome and I'd recommend this to high school students. I chose to read this book because another book by Ned Vizzini, "It's Kind of a Funny Story" is my favorite book and Vizzini is also my favorite author, so I was really interested in what his life was like when he was about my age. MayaG

It's usually decent, but it's not the equal of the more famous work (It's Kind of a Funny Story)....

It's divided into segments, mostly unrelated, and there are some bad segments, annoying, but if you forget about what doesn't work it passes the time at least.

..........................

There's also a real gem on page 55 on the nook version-- "My dominant nerd brain was telling me to stay home and cram. My subordinate cool brain was causing problems."-- but this sort of thing does not happen nearly often enough to make it great, nor as often as "It's Kind of a Funny Story" would lead you to expect. It's basically like a sort of silly footnote to (or, chronologically, a rehearsal for) his most famous work, with the sentences quoted above as a sort of blurb or summary.

A usually decent little footnote/rehearsal/(or, chronologically, for the new edition) re-hash.... not more, not less.

[He was also only nineteen when it was first published, so I guess you have to keep that in mind. It was also before his psychiatric hospitalization, so that's something you're missing out on, although, well, whatever.]

(8/10) ( )