Customer Reviews

Bullyville

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

 

 

If you have ever read a human interest story about someone you knew, and said to yourself, "That reporter either got snowed or wrote the story before meeting the guy," this is a book for you.

Bart's mother's life is saved because he's home sick from school. "Miracle boy," as the papers call him, gets a mercy scholarship to an elite school and life is perfect forever.

Well, no. The papers don't tell (and Bart doesn't want them to) the icky other side of the story, of how and why his father was not saved, of the long and horrible grief of Bart's mother, of how prep school is a living hell. Without giving too much away, every time the author has you set up for a tired old cliche, she pulls the rug out from under you in a cynical, realistic, refreshing way. But speaking of cliches--I really felt as though Bart were a real person, and one I'd be proud to know.

What a great book.

When Bart Rangely's absentee father is caught in the North Tower and killed on September 11th, he thinks that life can't get much worse.

Unfortunately, he thinks too soon.

Because of the public nature of his tragedy, Bart is offered a scholarship to the exclusive Baileywell Academy, an institution better known to its students as "Bullywell" for the rampant bullying that takes place behind its expensive doors.

Upon his arrival, Bart is assigned his own personal tormentor, Tyro Bergen, and his life descends into hell. But when he tries to retaliate, and is assigned volunteer work at a hospital for punishment, he finds a friend in an unlikely place, and discovers that sometimes a bully is hiding more from the world than his venom, and that things are not always
precisely what they seem.

The idea most compelling to me in BULLYVILLE is the world of the bullied, a world all but invisible to the adults responsible for the safety of its inhabitants. It is easy to imagine the story descending quickly into darkness and remaining there for the duration of the book.

Instead, Francine Prose presents a story that is at its core violence and personal disaster while still maintaining an uplifting tone. Bart Rangely is a funny, charming protagonist who keeps the story light even when dealing with its most serious concepts. I enjoyed Bart's tale immensely, and anyone who has been touched by bullying will identify with his dilemma.

Reviewed by: Rebecca Wells

Francine Prose has been one of my favorite writers of adult fiction, but this book is a weak novel that seems to write down to young readers. It's dull and downright silly. I have been TRYING to finish this book and I have never had to work so hard. It's an "easy" read, too easy in fact, but it's just so damn uninteresting and cliche that I can't bring myself to finish the last 50 pages.

The main character has a sad and unique (I guess) backstory, but that is not enough to carry this plot. This is a slow-moving bore that really disappoints. I really believe that Francine wrote "to an audience" instead of "for an audience" and she missed the target entirely.

Interestingly enough, I had been thinking one day that I would like read about bullies. I don't like bullies much, and I never really was a bully nor was bullied in school. So, for whatever weird reason, I wanted to read about them. To my delight, I was in a Salvation Army and found an advanced reader edition of this book on the shelf for $.80 cents! This is my first time reading a Prose book and I will say that Prose has a pretty decent flow to her writing. It is a hair wordy and there are non-stop dressed up cliches that aren't really irritating, but clearly the author is trying to be creative and the effort is noticeable. The novel itself wasn't a bad story, but it didn't grab me either. I feel I was told too much and wasn't able to FEEL much of anything. When Bart's father died, I didn't feel any of the pain, I was kind of told it. When Bart started his new school, I felt like I was being given a tour of a local restaurant - yawn. The emotional fortitude this type of story should bring out was just not there. Now, I still give the book an average grade, because it is readable, I think a young adult audience might still identify with it and like I mentioned before, Prose's flow with writing is pretty decent which means the author did their job, but barely.

An extremely accurate portrayal of the bullying endemic in private schools, as well as the length the schools go to cover up the problem. How can we address the terrible issue of private school bullying, when anyone who speaks out about the issue is bullied? Great book, would like to see this issue addressed in the media.