Rating: Needs Parent supervision

Reading Level: Middle School

Breakfast at Tiffany’s meets I laughed out loud. Great writing, great story.

Possible Concerns:

  • Disrespect to bookworms, and thinker types. A character makes fun of people who like formulas and chess. He calls them slugs. Of course, the jock ends up liking the nerds in the end, and he learns to respect them. But at the beginning it’s a bit brutal.
  • Disrespect towards authority. The students question the authority of their teacher and at one point break the rules to investigate her.
  • Breaking and Entering. The students break into the school and lie about why when they’re caught.
  • Potty/Body humor. Pee, butts, and a couple other mild references.
  • Divorce. A girl shares how her dad left her mom and moved on to a “new family.” She takes great displeasure in his choice to do so. She also is critical of her mom, wishing she had advocated for herself.

At first, I didn’t like the book at all because of the disrespect toward nerdy types, but by the end I was really enjoying the character transformation.

If you have a reader who really has absolutely no athletic talent (and is sensitive about it), maybe take a rain check until they are comfortable in their own skin.

I preferred Korman’s Restart, which had similar themes but was softer on the insults.