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3.14 AVERAGE
3.14 AVERAGE
This was a cute and fun read. Even as a girl, I understood what Perry was going through. I adored him, and the supporting characters!
Ned, above all the authors writing about social remoteness, is my perfect cup of tea. He had me at It's Kind of a Funny Story, his own story. He had a night of full blown episode of suicidal tendency, he called 911 and admitted himself in a Mental Ward, he chose life. He had me then, then just when I started searching for him, turned out he actually did it. He killed himself at thirty.
Again, he is my cup of tea, but this book is coffee. It lacks the dark humor often seen in his books. This is about a guy obsessed with Dungeons and Dragons, and discovered a loop between real world the the other dimensions, where D&D is real. What happens in other dimension, counteracts with real life. It's my fault, I expected something different from what the book can actually offer.
You are still my number one, Ned. This book is just not for me.
Again, he is my cup of tea, but this book is coffee. It lacks the dark humor often seen in his books. This is about a guy obsessed with Dungeons and Dragons, and discovered a loop between real world the the other dimensions, where D&D is real. What happens in other dimension, counteracts with real life. It's my fault, I expected something different from what the book can actually offer.
You are still my number one, Ned. This book is just not for me.
Ned Vizzini is quirky and nerdy and that totally works for me. Good guy or girl appeal. Might recommend to my sister's Magic: the Gathering playing boyfriend. He might relate well to this one. I was never a big gamer, but the bit of fantasy appealed to me in the same way that Firefly does.
I really liked this book a lot. I'm glad that I decided to pick it up at the library
This was such a great book for the slightly geeky boy who is into RPGs (and possibly a fan of "The Big Bang Theory"). Perry's experience playing Creatures & Caverns by himself makes him a sadder character than the usual hero, but his actions in the World of the Other Normals will make them cheer.
It's his incredible geekiness and lack of social skills that makes him endearing. The scene at the dance? Priceless, and one that will resonate with just the boys who should read this book. Ditto his rant about being a Late Bloomer (and the Discovery of the Hair). He's so out of place in our world that you know that something will have to change. The changes he undergoes are obviously not normal (how many readers will end up in another version of the universe?) so aren't really inspirational except that they may give those gamers hope for the future.
My biggest complaint was that the C&C game wasn't well-explained, and the Other Normals' world didn't seem to match the game. Had that happened, it would have tipped the book into a 5-star.
ARC provided by publisher.
It's his incredible geekiness and lack of social skills that makes him endearing. The scene at the dance? Priceless, and one that will resonate with just the boys who should read this book. Ditto his rant about being a Late Bloomer (and the Discovery of the Hair). He's so out of place in our world that you know that something will have to change. The changes he undergoes are obviously not normal (how many readers will end up in another version of the universe?) so aren't really inspirational except that they may give those gamers hope for the future.
My biggest complaint was that the C&C game wasn't well-explained, and the Other Normals' world didn't seem to match the game. Had that happened, it would have tipped the book into a 5-star.
ARC provided by publisher.
I really wanted to like this book- and I did find parts of it really endearing. But on the whole, I guess it would have resonated more with me if I was a teenage boy. So, I would recommend this for teens, especially those who may have some geeky tendencies. They will probably find some comfort here.
Sadly, this is the first book that Ned Vizzini has written that isn't worth your time.
Wow, this book was excellent. Although I am definitely biased when it comes to Ned Vizzini's works, that's not why I loved this. It's a superb coming of age tale that I feel many can relate to.
This story revolves around Peregrine "Perry" Eckert, perpetual dork who is obsessed with the role playing game, Creatures & Caverns. (Think Dungeons & Dragons.) His parents feel like he may be too into the game, so they send him to Camp Washika Lake for the summer, so he can learn how to be a man. As soon as he gets there he learns just how much of an outcast he is. Even the one friend he had back home, Sam - fellow C&C player, seems to be ignoring him to maintain his status. After Perry gets into a fight and is brought to the nurse's office, he meets a girl named Anna, and for the first time in his life, manages to have a half conversation with someone of the opposite gender. Unfortunately for Perry, he totally screws it up by talking about C&C. He hears someone call him an idiot from behind and when he goes to investigate he comes across a ferrule. A creature from his game, his preferred creature. After following the ferrule, who reveals himself to be Mortin Enaw, he gets brought to "The World of the Other Normals," the land from his game. There he's put on a mission to help save the Princess of the land. The people he meets and the situation he gets himself into there helps him learn how to become a man. Perry learns the importance of putting away childish things in order to grow.
This story really resonated with me. I personally never liked Dungeons & Dragons, and still don't but, it really doesn't matter when it comes to the core story of things. You'll feel as if you've been transported somewhere else yourself. Ned Vizzini has outdone himself with this one. I was very pleased.
This story revolves around Peregrine "Perry" Eckert, perpetual dork who is obsessed with the role playing game, Creatures & Caverns. (Think Dungeons & Dragons.) His parents feel like he may be too into the game, so they send him to Camp Washika Lake for the summer, so he can learn how to be a man. As soon as he gets there he learns just how much of an outcast he is. Even the one friend he had back home, Sam - fellow C&C player, seems to be ignoring him to maintain his status. After Perry gets into a fight and is brought to the nurse's office, he meets a girl named Anna, and for the first time in his life, manages to have a half conversation with someone of the opposite gender. Unfortunately for Perry, he totally screws it up by talking about C&C. He hears someone call him an idiot from behind and when he goes to investigate he comes across a ferrule. A creature from his game, his preferred creature. After following the ferrule, who reveals himself to be Mortin Enaw, he gets brought to "The World of the Other Normals," the land from his game. There he's put on a mission to help save the Princess of the land. The people he meets and the situation he gets himself into there helps him learn how to become a man. Perry learns the importance of putting away childish things in order to grow.
This story really resonated with me. I personally never liked Dungeons & Dragons, and still don't but, it really doesn't matter when it comes to the core story of things. You'll feel as if you've been transported somewhere else yourself. Ned Vizzini has outdone himself with this one. I was very pleased.
This book started off with perhaps the best first line of any book I'd read all year, so I had high hopes going in. It did continue to make me laugh throughout, but it also had a lot of poorly handled moments that needled me as I read, dragging it down to be a fairly average, forgettable read.
I was attracted to this book because it was inspired by Dungeons and Dragons. The protagonist is obsessed with the book's version of the game, Creatures and Caverns, and eventually things from that world start showing up in his actual life. It reminded me a little of Stranger Things in that respect (except this isn't horror and Stranger Things is better written).
Most of what I didn't like about this book centered around gender issues. This was written with the old-fashioned 'girls-don't-like-anything-nerdy' mentality, which frankly, I thought we were starting to grow beyond as a society. Granted, 2012 was a lot longer ago than it sounds, but even so, it's a trope I'm tired of seeing at this point unless it gets proven wrong, which in this case, it doesn't. As an added annoyance, the one girl who is nerdy by being the captain of the math team is described as "so brilliant that she has rendered herself asexual," effectively meaning that smart/nerdy girls exist, but because they are smart/nerdy, the protagonist has no interest in them (yet he still gets immensely frustrated when non-nerdy women view him the same way). This double-standard rendered the character relatively unlikable within the first 25 pages of the book.
Trans issues also cropped up in this book and weren't handled well. For no discernible reason whatsoever, one of the minor characters (introduced as Miss K) had an androgynous appearance, and despite the fact that she was presented as a "Miss," the protagonist just had to stumble over her gender any time he or the narration went to refer to her. She was a completely insignificant character and I have no idea what the point was of including this at all, aside from to annoy me as a reader. There was also a trans character (included only for plot reasons to "trick" the protagonist), and when it was discovered that she was amab, we get the following quote: "I remember the telltale sign you're supposed to look for with men versus women: the Adam's apple," implying that he should be examining strangers' necks to check their gender identity against their birth sex. That character was also referred to later as "transsexual," which may have been in use in 2012 (I genuinely don't know) but certainly isn't appropriate now. I should also mention, while we're on the subject, that homophobic slurs were used in a few places throughout the book as well, though this didn't bother me as much because they were used by bullies and it felt more like a realistic depiction of teen male bullying in the time period than it did any kind of actual commentary on queerness.
I also had an issue with the way that consent was handled in the book. At one point, the protagonist asks a girl if he could kiss her, and she says no, but she also tells him that you're not supposed to ask if you can kiss a girl; you're just supposed to do it. That seemed a little contradictory coming from a woman who wouldn't have wanted him to kiss her, and it also seemed like a weird message to put in a kid's book.
To further the consent conversation and also really cement the protagonist as unlikable, there's a scene at a dance where he does something really weird and unrelatable-- This really put the last nail in the coffin of me not really liking this character that well. Throughout the book, he is presented as a nerdy character who isn't particularly popular or well-liked because of his obsession with Creatures and Caverns, and I was under the impression that was supposed to make him more relatable, at least with the nerdy crowd. It even endeared him to me a little despite his weird, sexist double standards. But when this happened, all that went out the window. There was no good, logical reason for him to think doing this was a good idea, and seeing him do it made me reevaluate him and think, "Hmm, maybe there's a good reason no one wants to talk to him." It put me on the side of everyone else, which is decidedly not what the author wanted to do.
There was also a strange element where the protagonist was, at one point, the racial minority in a situation (the only white kid at camp), and it made him uncomfortable, but wasn't in any way used to teach any kind of lessons about actual racism or the experience of being a racial minority in the wider world, which made me question the point, again.
Now, looking back at everything I've written about this book, it is quite a long list of problematic elements. That said, they only cropped up here and there throughout the book, and there were plenty of spaces in between that were at least entertaining. It did feel as if it were written for the younger side of YA, as certain things that happened felt a little too on-the-nose or unbelievable (such as the camp randomly having a sign out in front of it saying "No lawyers beyond this point" or characters shunning other for deciding to partake in any kind of vice such as drinking or smoking). It also didn't feel like it was written to be problematic on purpose or for any kind of agenda; I think it was just a reflection of how the author actually saw the world and I doubt he ever thought anyone would have issues with it.
Overall, it was an okay book. It gave me some laughs and I did enjoy some parts of it, though I wouldn't necessarily recommend it to anyone. I'm sure this same idea has been done better by someone else somewhere; I'll let you know if I find it!
I was attracted to this book because it was inspired by Dungeons and Dragons. The protagonist is obsessed with the book's version of the game, Creatures and Caverns, and eventually things from that world start showing up in his actual life. It reminded me a little of Stranger Things in that respect (except this isn't horror and Stranger Things is better written).
Most of what I didn't like about this book centered around gender issues. This was written with the old-fashioned 'girls-don't-like-anything-nerdy' mentality, which frankly, I thought we were starting to grow beyond as a society. Granted, 2012 was a lot longer ago than it sounds, but even so, it's a trope I'm tired of seeing at this point unless it gets proven wrong, which in this case, it doesn't. As an added annoyance, the one girl who is nerdy by being the captain of the math team is described as "so brilliant that she has rendered herself asexual," effectively meaning that smart/nerdy girls exist, but because they are smart/nerdy, the protagonist has no interest in them (yet he still gets immensely frustrated when non-nerdy women view him the same way). This double-standard rendered the character relatively unlikable within the first 25 pages of the book.
Trans issues also cropped up in this book and weren't handled well. For no discernible reason whatsoever, one of the minor characters (introduced as Miss K) had an androgynous appearance, and despite the fact that she was presented as a "Miss," the protagonist just had to stumble over her gender any time he or the narration went to refer to her. She was a completely insignificant character and I have no idea what the point was of including this at all, aside from to annoy me as a reader. There was also a trans character (included only for plot reasons to "trick" the protagonist), and when it was discovered that she was amab, we get the following quote: "I remember the telltale sign you're supposed to look for with men versus women: the Adam's apple," implying that he should be examining strangers' necks to check their gender identity against their birth sex. That character was also referred to later as "transsexual," which may have been in use in 2012 (I genuinely don't know) but certainly isn't appropriate now. I should also mention, while we're on the subject, that homophobic slurs were used in a few places throughout the book as well, though this didn't bother me as much because they were used by bullies and it felt more like a realistic depiction of teen male bullying in the time period than it did any kind of actual commentary on queerness.
I also had an issue with the way that consent was handled in the book. At one point, the protagonist asks a girl if he could kiss her, and she says no, but she also tells him that you're not supposed to ask if you can kiss a girl; you're just supposed to do it. That seemed a little contradictory coming from a woman who wouldn't have wanted him to kiss her, and it also seemed like a weird message to put in a kid's book.
To further the consent conversation and also really cement the protagonist as unlikable, there's a scene at a dance where he does something really weird and unrelatable--
Spoiler
he pulls down his pants and exposes himself to a girl he likes in public to "prove he is a man."There was also a strange element where the protagonist was, at one point, the racial minority in a situation (the only white kid at camp), and it made him uncomfortable, but wasn't in any way used to teach any kind of lessons about actual racism or the experience of being a racial minority in the wider world, which made me question the point, again.
Now, looking back at everything I've written about this book, it is quite a long list of problematic elements. That said, they only cropped up here and there throughout the book, and there were plenty of spaces in between that were at least entertaining. It did feel as if it were written for the younger side of YA, as certain things that happened felt a little too on-the-nose or unbelievable (such as the camp randomly having a sign out in front of it saying "No lawyers beyond this point" or characters shunning other for deciding to partake in any kind of vice such as drinking or smoking). It also didn't feel like it was written to be problematic on purpose or for any kind of agenda; I think it was just a reflection of how the author actually saw the world and I doubt he ever thought anyone would have issues with it.
Overall, it was an okay book. It gave me some laughs and I did enjoy some parts of it, though I wouldn't necessarily recommend it to anyone. I'm sure this same idea has been done better by someone else somewhere; I'll let you know if I find it!
This was definitely out of my wheelhouse, I'm not huge into Fantasy or RPG's at all, but I'll tell you what. I gave it a chance, and it paid off. I found myself really into the story, and rooting for Perry, Ada, and Mortin. I think it helped that the chapters were short and the story was relatively fast-paced and moved well. I'm not exactly ready to roll the 20-sided dice, but I will for sure recommend this to my students who enjoy Fantasy & RPG's.