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How To Get Suspended and Influence People
by Adam Selzer
Reviewed by Brian Farrey, Flux Blog
I can't tell you the number of books I've forgotten. I'm not talking about the kind of forgetting from my days of working
in a bookstore when I would refund books for people who sheepishly admitted that they took the book home and got ten pages
in before they realized they'd already read it. That's a different kind of forgetting. I'm talking about the kind of book
you can hold up and say, "Why, yes, I remember reading this, but I couldn't tell you the first thing about it. I think the
plot had something to do with...avocadoes, maybe?"
I've forgotten tons of those books. Which I think isn't a very good sign for the book. The ones I remember are the ones
that fit on opposite ends of the emotional spectrum: I loved the book immensely or found myself wishing that I could bring
the writer up on war crimes charges. I am pleased to report that Adam Selzer's debut novel, How to Get Suspended and
Influence People, falls into the former category. I loved this book and I will be remembering it for a long, long
time.
Selzer introduces readers to Leon Noside Harris, an eighth grader feeding from a big buffet of crazy in his life. His
parents like to make bad meals and then make fun of them (the way some people intentionally watch bad movies and mock them).
His friends include a communist, a pyromaniac, and a pothead, and the teachers at his school run the gamut from uptight
killjoys to über-liberal rabblerousers. With all this at one's disposal, why not have a little fun?
As part of a class for gifted students, Leon decides to make an avant garde sex ed film for younger students (called
La Dolce Pubert, pronounced pyoo-bare). Aiding him in his endeavor is his very intelligent, very cultured friend,
Anna, who helps him with research (like understanding exactly what 'avant garde' means in the first place) and encourages
him to express himself. But when a rough cut of the film is dubbed obscene by the overseer of the gifted program, Leon is
suspended, igniting a debate about the nature of censorship.
I haven't laughed out loud at a book since Anthony McGowan's Hellbent. Selzer has really got the funny down but he
gets kudos for far more than that. Leon's voice, at turns wry and ironic, will keep readers turning pages to find out
exactly how weird the situation can get (and it gets pretty weird). Leon is a full-realized character who you can't help
but love.
If there's a downside, it's that I think I had too many of Leon's friends thrown at me; I got a bit confused sorting them
out. But each has fun quirks and personalities and I'm sure that as Selzer continues to explore this world (a sequel is
due out in 2008), each will have his moment to shine and become memorable.
Because that's what I've come to ask from a book: make me remember you (preferably in a good way). Synapses are precious
resources and if a book is going to take up such prime real estate, I want to vividly recall the wacky parents and uncanny
friends well enough to spread the word. How to Get Suspended and Influence People now has such a permanent space
in my brain.
Read Brian's Open Letter to Adam Selzer here
Notes from the Midnight Driver
by Jordan Sonnenblick
Reviewed by a.fortis (Sarah Stevenson), Reading YA: Readers' Rants
It All Started with a Yard Gnome...
It's a rare but wonderful book that can make you laugh out loud AND want to cry; that is sad and uplifting and slyly funny
all at the same time. Add in some stale vodka, an ill-fated yard gnome, a lovely-yet-lethal karate expert, a grouchy old
man, and band geeks aplenty, and you'll have Jordan Sonnenblick's hilarious Notes from the Midnight Driver.
Alex Gregory is just an average guy. That is, he's as average as you can be when your parents are separated due to your
dad's affair with your former third-grade teacher. So it sounds like a good idea at the time to get drunk off some of his
parents' old vodka, swipe his mom's car, and drive over to his dad's house to give him a piece of his mind. Unfortunately,
Alex gets as far as the neighbor's yard, and finds himself hauled in front of a judge for, among other things, reckless
yard-gnome destruction and puking profusely on a police officer.
Could it get any worse than to be sentenced to 100 hours working in an old folks' home? Sure it can, when Alex finds out
he's assigned to Solomon Lewis, the bitterest and most abusive geezer on the planet. Unfortunately, he's not going to get
much sympathy from his parents, or from his best friend, Goth-y, pixyish Laurie, who has parental problems of her own. The
truth is, it takes time to break down someone else's walls—and to break down your own—especially when you don't know you
have them in the first place.
Sonnenblick has crafted a story with so many laugh-out-loud scenes in Alex's clear and quirky voice that you might mistake
it at first for a simple humor piece. But don't be fooled. In the end, it's just as touching as it is funny. It's very
tightly written—every moment and every character matters, even if it's in little ways. And it communicates amazingly well
the idea that we sometimes learn most from those situations we can least imagine teaching us anything; that the people we
see every day, whose relationships with us seem the most mundane and ordinary, are often those who are most important to
us, who we can't afford to take for granted.
The Poker Diaries
by Liza Conrad
Reviewed by Jocelyn Pearce, Teen Book Review
While it's not quite as breathtaking as her earlier novel Rock My World, Liza Conrad's The Poker Diaries
is a funny, original story readers will love. The Poker Diaries stars Lulu, a New York City girl who is living proof that what happens in
Vegas doesn't necessarily stay there. Her parents eloped in Las Vegas, but found they didn't really fit together in the
real world. They ended up with Lulu, however, as a souvenir of their brief marriage.
Lulu certainly enjoys the uptown world of her mother, filled with the richest and most powerful people in New York, visits
to art museums, and fancy clothes. But she also loves her dad's very different world downtown—illegal poker games,
socializing with former convicts (including her own grandfather), and her crush, Mark, a fellow poker player. Lulu is an
amazing poker player, able to beat her uptown friends every time, and they know it—that's why it's such an obvious
mistake when her friend Dack loses his grandfather's beloved watch in a poker game.
Lulu agrees to try to win it back for her friend, playing poker against some spoiled rich kids who aren't a match for this
back room poker queen. However, this game puts her in a bad situation—as many people probably know, high-stakes poker
isn't exactly legal, and, as the daughter of the woman seriously dating the mayor of New York City, Lulu can't afford to be
put in the spotlight.
The Power Diaries is the latest fun, fresh, and original novel by the very talented Liza Conrad. Her
three-dimensional characters make this an absorbing read, and the pages go by quickly once you've been sucked in! Lulu's
exciting life makes for wonderful reading, and this fast-paced novel will have readers searching for more of Liza Conrad's
work, perhaps even hoping for more about Lulu and the people in her life sometime in the future. In what has been called
the golden age of young adult literature, Liza Conrad really stands out from the rest!
Books Reviewed:
How to Get Suspended and Influence People, by Adam Selzer. Delacorte Books for Young Readers,
2007.
ISBN: 0-3857-3369-0.
Notes from the Midnight Driver, by Jordan Sonnenblick. Scholastic Press, 2006.
ISBN: 0-4397-5779-7.
The Poker Diaries, by Liza Conrad. NAL Trade, 2007. ISBN: 0-4512-2024-2.
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