A review by kunger129
The One-in-a-Million Boy by Monica Wood

3.0

I read this book because I kept hearing Anne Bogel mention it on the What Should I Read Next? podcast. She really loves this book, so I had to know what it was all about. I didn’t love it. I have come to realize that Anne loves character-driven books, and, as you know, I do not. Do you ever get sick of me saying that? I kind of get sick of writing it sometimes.

I wanted to love this book, and I did really like the parts in flashback to the boy’s relationship with Ona. Basically, a young (rather odd) boy was assigned to help an old woman as part of a Boy Scout project. He became fascinated with her age (she’s 104 years-old), and they make a plan to try to get her into the Guiness Book of World Records. And then the boy dies of a rare complication from his medicine, and the boy’s father fills in for him. All of this was good. (And it all happens before the story actually begins.) And I liked it all.

But then there is A TON of description about the father, and the mother, and Ona’s past, and the whole thing generally gets away from the relationship between the boy and Ona, and I just lost interest. I found myself racing through to the end to just finish the book. Had I not enjoyed the beginning so much, I would have rated it even lower.

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