Customer Reviews

America's Report Card: A Novel

5 star:		(8)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Once again, McNally comes out with a nice book which doesn't seem to be getting the attention from the public that it deserves. I first came across his work in his solid debut short story collection "Troublemakers"; and his subsequent novel, "The Book of Ralph", was one of my favorite reads of 2004. I suspect that this latest book is perhaps suffering from an altogether bland cover, one that gives no indication as to the story inside nor any clue as to the tone. Hopefully the publisher will commission a full redesign for the paperback so that McNally's entertaining writing gets the packaging it deserves.

In any event, set in the summer before the 2004 presidential election, the story follows two separate protagonists. Charlie Wolf has just completed a useless Masters in Film Studies at the University of Iowa and is settling into a leisurely summer with his sexy Russian girlfriend. The couple take hourly wage jobs as test scorers with the massive corporation who runs the titular high school standardized exam. McNally once worked as a tester for such a company, and thus has plenty of ammo for a fairly wicked satire of the Dilbert/Office Space sweatshop inanities of such a workplace. Meanwhile, outside of Chicago, 17-year-old Jainey struggles to cope with her family life (father in jail, mother in a nicotine-fueled fugue, paranoid brother barricaded in the attic). The only adult she can even partially relate to is her art teacher, a woman who is sure the government is out to kill her. When Jainey discovers the art teacher dead, she pours her fears into the essay she writes for the standardized test which is eventually read by Charlie.

For reasons I don't wish to spoil, Charlie and Jainey meet and become allies of sorts. Without giving anything away, the story takes them deep into X-Files turf as they contemplate the notion that the bland standardized tests have a nefarious purpose. This plot element meshes somewhat with a somewhat awkward satire of the post 9-11 Bush administration. While it's refreshing to see such an unabashedly political stance (cf. the dedication to Ann Coulter, "America's Iago), this aspect would have benefited from a somewhat lighter touch. For example, Jainey discovers her art teacher's final project, a life-sized Osama Bin Laden dummy whose face peels off to reveal that of George Bush -- not exactly subtle. However, to be fair to McNally, satire is probably the hardest thing for a writer to pull off without it seeming forced, and at least he's stabbing his pen in the right direction. As usual, his characters are flawed and sympathetic souls you can completely root for, and there's a great sense of humor behind it all. Good stuff which hopefully more people will start to check out.

"Paranoia strikes deep ... into your life it will creep"
- Buffalo Springfield

Enough other reviewers have summarized the plot of this novel that for me to do the same would be akin to writing cliff notes to cliff notes. (It would bore both of us and won't tell you anything about the book that you probably don't already know by now.)

I will say, however, that I found this book extremely compelling, and I was hooked into it from the first few pages. It's a dark and wonderful paranoid fantasy filled with enough social satire and black humor to make it simultaneously hilarious and deeply poignant.

Normally, I am not one to engage in or encourage conspiracy theories, but the unprecedented amount of secrecy that our current administration insists on is enough to encourage some paranoid thoughts even in the most well-adjusted of citizens. John McNally does a masterful job of pulling those disquieting thoughts out into the open and shoving them in your face in a manner that makes you laugh, applaud, and shake your head in disbelief all at the same time.

It is no small feat to have conspiracy theories (some plausible, some wildly implausible) drive so many characters in one book. It is even more difficult to do this while preserving reader sympathy for the essential humanity of the characters in question.

I positively adored this book from start to finish and can honestly say that it's one of the best books that I've read in the last five years.

On a small side note, I must take exception to the review that stated "McNally ... fails when it comes to writing female characters" and that the "conversations between his main male and female characters are so clearly male written". On the contrary, I found myself frequently surprised that he succeeded in nailing the female perspective so well.

Clearly, that review was written by a man. (*wink*)

I've always been a big fan of John McNally's work--Troublemakers and The Book of Ralph are personal favorites, so I eagerly awaited America's Report Card. I wasn't disappointed! Thrills, chills, and spills abound in this action-packed page-turner. I couldn't put it down during my morning subway commute, and you won't be able to either.

America's Report Card is an incisive, funny look at a nation that's gone mad and is keeping imperfect score of the process. John McNally's droll work should be required reading for parents who obsess about their children's test scores-which means it should be a bestseller.

The main characters in America's Report Card are interesting and memorable, even though I finished the book 6 months ago occasionally I laugh or cringe about something they did. McNally intertwines their different lives into a complex and uplifting relationship, like he did in The Book of Ralph (a great book). You see it here with Charlie, a young adult with a master's degree who is grading tests, and Jainey, a 17-year-old coming from a dysfunctional family 100s of miles away. They are both on the down-and-out, and you can't help but root for them as they are reaching out for something and they find each other, in the midsts of a possible government conspiracy. America's Report Card was engaging and read quickly because of McNally's natural writing style. The book captures America's paranoia with the government and questions our testing culture, full of satire. I recommend it for someone looking for a novel that is an entertaining novel to read, yet takes on consequential topics.

This is a wonderful novel! Along with Jess Walters's "The Zero", it is one of the best descriptions of how life has changed in post-9/11 America. The characters are very real, funny, moving, and poignant. The themes of the book are very serious, but are conveyed with wit, humor, and irony.

The story lines were just a strange facade to some political thoughts that never actually materialized as a solid statement. I kept reading as the two main characters were interesting, but in the end nothing really ties together. Even an uberliberal would have preferred a bit more subtly in presenting this point of view. I could not become empathetic to a character who basically stalks a young girl and then doesn't set any boundries in his "care-taking" A less-than-perfect hero is always appreciated, but I couldn't buy him as a future influential leader for any party.

Five Stars! One of the most unusual novels I've read this year. A brilliant cautionary tale on the state of some of the citizens of the Union after '9/11' in this fictionalized world. John McNally, who actually scored standardized tests for a living at one time, is a wildly imaginative writer conjuring up a bevy of fascinating characters, organizations, and lifestyles, connected to but not bound by the standardized academic achievement test known as America's Report Card. He see-saws the reader between two main characters who are trying to find their way in pre- and post- 9/11 America beginning in two different locations in America's heartland. This refreshing novel runs the gamut of emotions with an air of foreboding.

Near Chicago, Jainey the teen has a wild imagination expressed thru comic strips and 'acting out'; and meanwhile in Iowa, Charlie, the master's graduate, has a wild girlfriend who exudes sensuality: both of whom are scorers for America's Report Card. Then the novel grabs us by the hand and jerks us into it's world. High points of the novel: Petra Petrovich, who steals every scene she's in; a wild answer to an essay question; the descriptive prose surrounding the gymnasium incident; 4 August 2004; and the creepy feeling that some characters get that 'more is going on than meets the eye'. Is it ever!! Some characters are diverting, while others are repulsive at times, as the storyline begins to lead towards confrontation. Let's hope we never meet similar people like a few of these characters in real life. And there are some flat out hilarious scenes, amid the seriousness: the beginning of Part IV alone has at least three sidesplitting gaffaws. Mariah's statement hangs in the air: "the more you know, the less certain people like you". But is it true? You decide as you enjoy this oblique, but highly entertaining novel.

Overall, McNally eventually folds the ENTIRE storyline onto itself with some neat tricks of storytelling, as he ties up all of the relevant threads in the storyline at the end. But this ending was not expected! "America's Report Card" is a compelling novel that will have the reader 'charging on' just to see where all of these people and their activities are headed to in the end. Warning: lots of crude language, but lots of mesmerizing scenes. A MASTERFUL feat of writing. Warning considered, it is Highly Recommended! I have virtually re-read the entire enjoyable novel a second time. Five Compelling Stars!!

(Notes:
* This review is based on an unabridged EBook digital download in Adobe Reader 7. Save a tree, download your books!
* Now I must find and read McNally's "The Book of Ralph" and "Troublemakers".)

McNally's book America's Report Card was a quick and interesting read. As a former "scorer" and "scoring supervisor" for a company similar to NTC (which also claims to have a Deep Storage in Iowa), I related very much to that aspect of the story. I felt his portrayal of the scoring community was right on and had me and my wife laughing and lamenting that portion of our lives. However, beyond that I had big problems with some parts of the book. I have scars on the inside of my throat from having ultra-liberal Bush bashing shoved down it. Don't get me wrong, I'm pretty liberal and not a fan of Bush but my God this was like Rush Limbaugh on the left brow beating me with every rehashed liberal barb against the Bush administration. If, perhaps, it had presented the "Bush is evil" argument in a fresh way instead of following the main line of every critic of the president it would have been tolerable. Beyond that there were some writing issues that also bothered me. McNally writes in a way that easy to follow and simplistic; that part is good. Yet he fails when it comes to writing female characters. The conversations between his main male and female characters are so clearly male written. Specifically the sexual conversations sound like two boys in their late teens talking about "screwing." All the maturity and femininity was lacking. I hate for this to be so negative as I did enjoy the read. However, I wouldn't read it again or recommend it, especially to anyone who hasn't scored standardized tests as that was the only part that kept me going.

I'm a professor who studies standardized testing, and so I picked up this book to read for fun. But it wasn't all that fun. There were some humorous moments, and I appreciated the liberal politics (if you aren't liberal, forget it -- heavy handed is an under-statement), but I did not find the book engaging or compelling. The primary plot involves a twenty-something college graduate who takes a job scoring standardized tests and a seventeen-year old girl who is essentially alone in the world. Their lives become inter-twined through a series of unbelievable events. There is a dark aura pervading the entire book, as the main character is a depressed insomniac who is not operating at his full capacity.
Personally, I like books that contain characters I care about, and it's even better if I feel that I understand what makes them tick. This wasn't that kind of book. Perhaps this book is intended to be solely satire with an unrealistic plot and bizarre occurrences, and in that case I'm the wrong audience for it. But either way, I do not see this as a brilliant, profound, or enjoyable work of fiction.