James Howe's Also Known as Elvis

I totally forgot to do this review!

The fourth book in the Misfits series focuses on Skeezie, who I always liked, but with this book, firmly places himself as my favorite character.

This one is set during the summer after the events of the first three books. Addie, Bobby and Joe are all going on vacations, some of them to multiple places. So Skeezie faces a bunch of time alone.

His mother is struggling with working two jobs and wants him to get one, so he finds work at the Candy Kitchen, the gang's favorite hangout. He quickly becomes a valuable employee, despite his young age, and his friendship with Steffi, the waitress that first appeared in the first book, deepens.

However, of course we've got to have some conflict, so enter Skeezie's dad, who left them I forget how many years before. The book follows Skeezie's ever-changing feelings about his dad, who has a new life in Rochester, NY (ha, I used to go there a lot) alongside his new girlfriend. He wants to marry her, which is why he's come back to town, to divorce Skeezie's mom.

Skeezie also struggles with an odd relationship with Becca, Addie's childhood friend who was terrible to her in Addie's book, then they ended up being friends. Becca acts like she likes Skeezie and talks him into helping her pick out a dog at the shelter, but when she's with her popular friends, she treats him like shit. While they're at the shelter, Skeezie falls in love with a dog, despite his tragic past with his childhood dog, and starts to realize Becca's not actually that into him.

Skeezie's dad invites him to come live with him and he eventually agrees and is surprised on the day they leave when he sees that his dad has adopted the dog he wanted from the shelter. But on the way to Rochester, Skeezie has a change of heart and realizes he belongs back at home with his mom, sisters and friends. Skeezie's dad is disappointed, but he takes him home and his mom even lets him keep the dog.

The entire story is framed by adult Skeezie talking to his unborn son and it's revealed at the end that he ended up marrying Steffi and they own and run the Candy Kitchen. Which we knew from the last part of Bobby's book, but it was still cool.

I think this was the best-written of the four books. I can't say exactly why. I just really like Skeezie.

James Howe's Addie on the Inside

I had planned to have both books 3 and 4 done today, but I got sidetracked watching a bunch of spooky TV and only read a few chapters of the fourth book. Another day!

Addie on the Inside is the third book in Howe's The Misfits series. I did not go into this book thinking I would like it for three reasons.

1) Addie was my least favorite Misfit by a long shot.

2) She's even worse in the second book, because she lets her boyfriend be verbally abusive to Joe without nearly enough repercussions.

3) This whole goddamn thing is written in verse.

I'm not sure I've ever made it known, but I do not care for poetry. I was never into it as a kid and by the time I got through undergrad English classes where they forced you to dissect every fucking syllable, I despised it.

On the plus side, I figured a book with loads of pages less than half-filled would be a fast read.

Well, I was right about the fast read. But I was wrong about thinking I wouldn't like it. I actually stayed up until almost 5:30am finishing it.

Addie on the Inside is what her character needed to make her likeable. You get to be in her head and barely have anything to do with anyone else for the entire book, and it makes her so much better a character.

There's a new character in this little world. She's Addie's childhood friend, Becca, and she's turned into a popular mean girl. So a lot of the book involves drama with mean girls, moreso than the male bullying Joe receives in the last book.

There's also a lot of boyfriend drama. The outcome of that is very favorable, in my opinion. No spoilers here though.

Addie's grandmother is my favorite adult character aside from Joe's Aunt Pam. Though Mr. Daly continues to be pretty awesome, too.

The verse constantly changes type, so it's not boring. And a lot of it is basically prose written in verse form.

I recommend this one along with the first two. And I'm going to go ahead and recommend the fourth as well. I've loved what I've read so far. Skeezie might just be my favorite.

James Howe's The Misfits and Totally Joe

Following a book recommendation from one of my best friends, I bought the set of four Misfits books used on ebay. They arrived today and I've already finished two of the four. (I intended to do all four, but I kept getting sidetracked.)

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.