I know James Howe as the author of the Bunnicula series, so I had no idea this series of four books even existed. Looking at the inside of the book, The Misfits was written in 2001, so this makes sense. In 2001, I'd already been out of undergrad for a year, so there weren't many ways for me to find out about a book set in middle school.
But I'm very glad I finally learned about the series and read it. The Misfits actually spawned a real movement called No Name-Calling Week, which began in 2004 and continues now.
The book focuses on four characters, referred to as The Gang Of Five (this is explained best in Totally Joe), who are each an outsider in their own way. The POV character of The Misfits is Bobby, who's the overweight kid. Then there's Joe, who's quite feminine and ends up finally coming out as gay, even though it's pretty obvious to everyone. (Again, this is more thoroughly covered in Totally Joe.) Addie, the lone female, is tall, intelligent and outspoken. Think Hermione during the heaviest bout of her SPEW stage. And Skeezie is an ex-bad boy who looks like he rolled out of the fifties.
Addie gets it in her head to create a third party for the school's election. After one very failed attempt by Addie and a horribly painful lunchtime conversation, Bobby ends up making this happen by coming up with the idea for the No-Name Party, a party whose platform is based on anti-bullying. The four members of The Gang of Five become the party's ticket.
The book is mostly well-written and uses some interesting formats. The gang meets at a local restaurant for their Forum and Addie writes down the minutes, so there are full chapters more in play format than prose. It's not just straight prose, which is both interesting and well-done.
I only really have one criticism of the book. The entire thing goes by and there are very few visual descriptors of the main cast. You know Bobby is overweight and white. That's it. Addie is tall and it's mentioned she has short hair briefly. There's also a scene where another character is discussing the color of her skin, like "the inside of an almond" or "peach ice cream." Joe, also white, likes to streak his hair in unnatural colors and paint one pinky nail. (He's got a more thorough description in his POV book.) Skeezie might have the best description in that you can immediately picture a 50s dude and that's pretty much him. It's also noted that he's "not Italian," though he gets called names that are Italian-based by the school's bullies.
So that said, when it comes to the school's minority characters, shouldn't they be so briefly described? Except they're not. There's a rather uncomfortable scene with DuShawn, one of the grade's three black students, describing himself and the two black female students, as well as an adopted student who's Chinese. I felt this overly descriptive method for the minorities made them seem more Other than should have been intended, considering the book's big turning point is that it's the main cast who's the most Other of them all. (According to DuShawn.) Why do I know the texture of one minor cast member's hair and not the color of the narrator's? It's a bit problematic.
I did really enjoy the book. Once it got past the first few chapters, where the more uncomfortable racial stuff is (dear gods, Addie, SHUT IT), it was pretty amazing. Bobby's relationship with his dad is sweet and I liked the development of his relationship with his co-worker. (Not that kind of relationship. Just read it. You'll see.)
I liked most of the cast. Addie was my least favorite of the four. Like I said, imagine SPEW Hermione. Maybe SPEW Hermione plus later books BSC Dawn. (Not early Dawn. She was cool.) Although one good point about her is that a lot of her political stances are completely relevant now, even almost 20 years after the book was written. She feels almost like she could be saying some of her lines about today's political dumpster fire. Bobby and Joe tied for favorite character, although Skeezie does have his moments.
It's a good read. Check it out.
Moving on, the second book is from Joe's point of view, but in a different way. Howe is clearly getting creative with his formats. The entire thing is written as a school assignment called an "alphabiography." Each student has to write about themselves with a section based on each letter of the alphabet, plus a "life lesson" for every section. I feel like this would be an incredibly difficult assignment and a giant pain in the ass, but of course it flows perfectly in the book itself.
This one is set right after the events of the first book and takes Joe from October through March of his seventh grade year. It's a more individual, personal journey than Bobby's. Bobby had some personal stuff, but he was still also the narrator of a multi-character ride. This is just Joe's story.
I like his voice, although his habit of stacking parenthetical remark after parenthetical remark is a bit annoying, especially when he overuses (Hello.) and it feels pretty forced.
I'm going to keep this short, because it's too spoilery if I go into much detail, but Joe officially comes out, deals with the ramifications of that, and deals with his first dabblings at relationships. Aunt Pam, who was the best adult character in the first book and I totally forgot to mention her, remains awesome. Although why Howe has her piercing ears with a needle when this was written in 2004 is beyond me. Just go to the goddamn mall.
Character-wise, my opinions remain mostly the same. I like the three boys. Addie's taken a downturn and so has DuShawn. I'm honestly not looking forward to the third book, because it's her POV and seems to be written in prose verse, which is kinda...ugh. Though it's probably not going to take long to get through when there are barely words on the pages. But I don't like how she lets him talk to Joe. She gets in a fight with him about it during one scene, but there aren't any lasting effects and I think far less of her for it. Colin...I feel bad for him, but I'm glad he came around in the end. And I'm looking forward to learning more about Zachary, so I hope we see more of him.
I'll likely be back tomorrow with the other two reviews.
No comments:
Post a Comment