Customer Reviews

Confessions of a Teenage Baboon

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

 

 

If you read my other two book reviews, you'll notice that I am a fan of Paul Zindel's writing. And after reading The Pigman and The Pigman's Legacy, I wanted to get my hands on anything the man's written. I picked up Confessions Of A Teenage Baboon one day, and I haven't put it down since.

Basically the book revolves around fifteen-year-old Chris Boyd and his struggles with his dysfunctional mother and the memories of his late father. His mother is a nurse, and whenever she gets a new patient, she and Chris move into the patient's home to take care of him/her. This time around the patient is an elderly woman named Carmelita Dipardi. And the members of the Dipardi household make the families in the movie "American Beauty" look normal. There's Carmelita's drunk son Lloyd and her disturbed husband, as well as Harold, a kid from the neighborhood that always seems to be around.

Here Chris battles love, hate, pain, violence, and especially depression, while temporarily living in the madhouse that is the Dipardi residence. The book can be shocking at times, but all the way through it's very enjoyable. It's filed under YOUNG ADULT, but adults can enjoy it just as much as teens...even more so, I think. I'm 21 and I enjoy it. In fact, I literally read it almost every day and I still never get tired of it. Do yourself a favor and pick it up.

In Confessions Of A Teenage Baboon I alone with other teenagers knows how it feels to be moved around from place to place. Leaving friends, best friends, loved ones and neighbors just because of your parent(s) jobs! My mom was also a live-in nurse so I know how it feels. This book is full of depression! Feelings are expressed emotionally and violently. Alot of times it is hard to admit you are getting close to somebody and you lie to yourself until it torments you. Chris was in alot of tough situations between stress, deceit, and love! I feel the same way towards some things and I would suggest this book to anyone who feels alone or needs advice or maybe someone who is tired of their own problems and wants to read about someone else's for a change! This book deserves a four. The only reason I did not give it a five was because it took too long to actually get to the point!

I thought that this book was really good. When I picked it up I did not know what it was going to be like but when I started to read it I really liked it. I also thought it was a very exiting book because I did not know what was going to happen next. I just started reading Paul Zindel books, and now he one of my favorite authors.

Years ago i read this book because at the time, Paul Zindel was my favorite author, and let me say, i was not disapointed by this novel. Like other novels written by Paul Zindel, Confessions of a Teenage Baboon deals with a dramatized depiction of teenage life in its worse. This story leaves you wanting to turn the page and read on. If the reader is familiar with Paul Zindel, they are familiar with a supremely climatic ending, well, Confessions wont disapoint. THis story makes the reader aware of life outside a hum-drum life. Paul Zindel does not glorify or fantisize on any aspect of teenage life. In fact, after reading one of his novels, you will wonder how it is possible that he is not a teenager himself. Story line of this novel? I read this novel four years ago, so i dont remember the exact details. But let me say: Teenage anxt, the unexpected, drama, comedy, a hilarious title, unbelievably real characters, and brutily real situations. May i also recommend all other Paul Zindel books: The Amazing and Death-Defying Diary of Eugene Dingman, The Girl who Wanted a Boy, I never Loved your Mind, A Begonia for Miss Applebaum, The Efect of Gamma-Rays..., David and Della, Harry and Hortense at Hormone High, My Darling my Hamburger, Pardon me Your Stepping on my Eyeball, The Pigman, A star for the Latecomer. believe me or not, i have read all of these. i am deffinately the expert on Paul Zindel, and i plan to read all of these novels a second time.

Paul Zindel's books have received widespread acclaim, and for good reason: he's an excellent writer. He's an adult who writes for adolescents and understands their motivations, hopes, fears, and dreams. I was first introduced to his work when I was assigned to read "The Pigman" in my ninth grade English class. I've read (and re-read) most of his work since then. This book deals with 13 year old Chris Boyd, whose mother, Helen, is a live-in nurse/caretaker. When she receives an assignment, she and Chris pack up and move to the house where she'll be working. She's now assigned to care for Mrs. Carmelita Dipardi who has a 30 year old son, Lloyd, who parties a lot and simultaneously dispenses advice to the shy, bewildered Chris, who's fixated on his missing father.

Lloyd might not be the first person anyone would go to for advice, but he reminds Chris that everyone has a choice; hence, the title of my review. Zindel's books generally are tinged with sadness in some way; a character dies or gets ill, or the protagonist fails in doing something that leads to tragedy. Here, though, despite Lloyd's slightly unhinged state, it's simply an urban tale of coming of age. And it's highly recommended for all ages.

This book was good- just regular, straight-up Zindel. Chris is an interesting character and Lloyd is fairly interesting too. I haven't read this in a while, but I do recommend it for any longtime Zindel fan. Do not begin with this one, however; start with I Never Loved Your Mind or The Pigman.

In the book Confessions of a Teenage Baboon, a kid named Chris waits `til the day he can wear his father Chesterfield coat. His father died a couple of years before the book began. He has to live in a house with a dying woman and her bad son. A lot of weird things go on in the book that often make you wonder, what is going on in the book. Chris also gets involved with a lot of different things.
A few suggestions to the author would be to use some better wording and description. Most of the book describes a lot but I think that you could make it better. Other than that, everything in the book is excellent. I hope to see more of those good books.