soph (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
sophia_sol) wrote2018-03-21 07:05 pm
sophia_sol) wrote2018-03-21 07:05 pm
Don't Care High, by Gordon Korman
Look, no Gordon Korman book will ever be as brilliant as I Want To Go Home!, and I definitely went into this book with artificially inflated expectations because I haven't read any Korman except I Want To Go Home! for many years. (...actually upon checking my book logs, I haven't read I Want To Go Home! at all since beginning my logs in 2009, I just feel like I must have because of all the fanfic I've read. And I actually read a Macdonald Hall book back in 2011. OH WELL. I Want To Go Home! is still the best.)
Korman is an author of hijinksy humour novels for kids, and he's been writing them (and been published!) since he was a kid himself. This one is about a high school where all the students are astoundingly apathetic about everything. Then a new kid comes to school with, like, ambition and stuff. And he makes a friend, and he and his friend end up getting this other random kid (Mike Otis) elected class president. And somehow, through this, they start to make the rest of the student body invested. (Mike Otis, for the record, finds the whole thing bewildering but mostly just takes the weird goings-on in stride.)
There are some issues with the book (eg female characters don't get much of a role outside romantic interest, and the one character with a Jewish-sounding last name is the character who's strongly associated with being interested in business ventures) but overall it's just kind of mildly fun. I didn't really love it, but I think I would have quite enjoyed it if I'd read it as a teenager myself.
And I find myself curious about the story of Mike Otis, quiet loner who builds his own car and doesn't really know how to talk to people and dresses funny and gives honest answers even when they're clearly not expected (or always listened to). What all else is going on in his life, outside of the manufactured hype around his presidency? The book doesn't let the reader into his viewpoint much and I want to know more.
Korman is an author of hijinksy humour novels for kids, and he's been writing them (and been published!) since he was a kid himself. This one is about a high school where all the students are astoundingly apathetic about everything. Then a new kid comes to school with, like, ambition and stuff. And he makes a friend, and he and his friend end up getting this other random kid (Mike Otis) elected class president. And somehow, through this, they start to make the rest of the student body invested. (Mike Otis, for the record, finds the whole thing bewildering but mostly just takes the weird goings-on in stride.)
There are some issues with the book (eg female characters don't get much of a role outside romantic interest, and the one character with a Jewish-sounding last name is the character who's strongly associated with being interested in business ventures) but overall it's just kind of mildly fun. I didn't really love it, but I think I would have quite enjoyed it if I'd read it as a teenager myself.
And I find myself curious about the story of Mike Otis, quiet loner who builds his own car and doesn't really know how to talk to people and dresses funny and gives honest answers even when they're clearly not expected (or always listened to). What all else is going on in his life, outside of the manufactured hype around his presidency? The book doesn't let the reader into his viewpoint much and I want to know more.