I don't want to be a freshman all over again

Please Don't Kill the Freshman

This book is a memoir by Zoe Trope about her freshman and sophomore years in high school, about falling in love, about being gay, about getting a book deal, about feeling misunderstood. I first picked it up because someone told me that something I wrote reminded them of this book. It was meant as in, "The writing and characters are really good, but the public won't like it because there's no plot." So, of course, I had to be self-centered and go read the book that was supposedly like mine. The first thing I discovered, before I even started reading, was that on the cover there are comments from DAVE EGGERS and JONATHAN SAFRAN FOER saying how genius it is. If Dave Eggers and Jonathan Safran Foer loved something I'd written, I'm pretty sure I wouldn't care if the public did or not.

So yes. There's not really a plot. That didn't really bother me. It took me a little while to get into it, because a lot of times it's written kind of like poetry. It can be very cryptic. At first, I found the author irritating. Then, however, I hit a point where I couldn't put it down. I just wanted to keep reading. I still found it irritating in places, but it was just so beautifully written. There were several lines I had to reread multiple times because they were just phrased so perfectly. This book is definitely not for everyone, but overall it is a truly lovely piece of work. 7.5 pretzel bites.

KAY