Middle School as cultural touchstone
by Teddy Steinkellner, Disney-Hyperion August, 2013
This is an accomplished MG/YA novel with enough sophistication to appeal to older readers as well. It employs an eclectic narrative technique with four distinct first person points of view, mixed with excerpts from text exchanges, tweets, blog pages, letters and school announcements. Thank you Dos Passos. The setting is suburban LA, the weight comes from the drama of the relationships and the interplay of wealth and poverty, social status and gang violence. These contrasts are nicely captured by the central premise: the l friendship is between two boys, Jake the 7th grade Jewish son of a rich Hollywood producer, the other Danny,the Hispanic child of the family’s (unseen) maid and gardener. The other two narrators are Harrah, Jakes older sister, the 8th grade daughter of privilege and queen bee of their middle school and the most intriguing character of all, outsider eccentric Dorothy Wu, who provides a sort of Greek chorus on the goings on. All this from a recent Stanford grad who has no right composing such a polished, complex and satisfying novel at such a tender age. Highly recommended.
