Customer Reviews

Doing Time

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

 

 

Doing Time: Notes from the Undergrad, Rob Thomas' lastest work of fiction for young adults captures the experiences of high school students engaged in community service projects they are required to complete for graduation. These stories will appeal to teenagers and to adults alike; the characters' voices are sincere and engaging, and the stories are intriguing, insightful, and most importantly, entertaining. I like how the author avoiding resorting to moralization and preachiness and focused on how individual teenagers might react in each of the situations...many of their decisions were surprising, and the stories ended in ways that really made me think.

Neither adults nor students should be put off by the fact that these are short stories...they are among the best pieces of young adult fiction I've read, and I think other readers will agree as they finish each one, they wish it would go on. The characters are that real, and the stories that engaging.

I'm ecstatic to have discovered this book. I'm a huge fan of YA books, and an even bigger fan of Veronica Mars, a critically acclaimed television show created and executive produced by Rob Thomas. I could go on and on about how great Rob Thomas is at writing dialogue, how perfectly plotted his story arcs are, and how he has the best understanding of the teenage mind in TV land... but that would be gushing. And I already kind of did that in the "Veronica Mars" review, so let's move on.

"Doing Time: Notes from the Undergrad" is a collection of short stories, each of which are first person narratives about how high schoolers spent their community service time (a requirement for their graduation). The stories range from slice of life tales, funny tidbits, and even tear jerkers, each of them commenting on the human condition. As with "Veronica Mars," Rob Thomas values the quirks and cynicism of realism over sentimentality, which makes this book ring all the more true.

The first story gives a nice context to those that follow. A college student named Randall is asked to review the reports that the high schoolers in question have written, and those reports are the subsequent stories. However, as another reviewer mentioned, this book feels extremely open-ended, as it doesn't close with another Randall story. However, that's a minor quibble, as this truly isn't a novel. It's simply a collection of short stories that center around a similar theme.

Some stories were better than others, but this book was entertaining throughout, which is rare for short story collections. It's short, it's packed with dialogue that zings across the page that will make any "Veronica Mars" fan feel like they are at home at last. It's not perfect, and it's not a life-changing book, but it's a great little book from an author whose work--whether it be prose or television--should be on your To Buy list.

8/10

Doing Time by Rob Thomas is a great book. Rob Thomas does an excellent job of writing ten short stories in which each one appeals to teenagers. Thomas does an exceptional job of conveying morals and themes from each story that really makes one think.
This book is exceptionally well written. Thomas was really able to bring these characters alive and have them become appealing to us young adults. He really portrays how teenagers would react in certain types of situations and made each story very logical and relaxing to read. I really liked how he had some twisted endings and had endings that really made one want to sit and think about what they have just read.
Thomas does such a good job with each story that you just do not want to have the stories end. He does such a good job of bringing out the character's personality traits. He truly does make them alive and seem like one of our friends at school. The only negative thing that Thomas does throughout this whole book is that he doesn't have much closure to the book.

This book is full of stories that are irony and also true. Most of them were similar to the ones that I read before but there was something always odd and unexpected. ¡®Doing Time¡¯ is about hours. It made me want to go over to Lee High School get involved with friends there volunteering for others. I would definitely recommend to the others who don¡¯t want to worry about which types of book they want to read because this book is related to our real lives and it shows Rob Thomas¡¯s thoughtful comments from each characters.

Again, I was reading stories about volunteer hours and everyone knows they need those to get into the colleges they want to go. There was this high school girl and she was part of a team that delivers stuffs. On the Christmas day, she was delivering boxes of can foods and some small furniture to the neighbors who do not have a food to celebrate their
own holidays. But by this chance to meet other people, she realized something that she should have not known. I kept on reading this story to the end and I said, ¡°Yeah, I¡®d be crying so hard in my mind if it was me.¡±

I remember one of the stories about this boy named Randall. He was a normal kid and one day, his mom introduced Preston, who was a very popular football player, to her son.
Preston was a cool guy helping Randall out with his talented football skills. And then all of a sudden I started thinking Randall is a lucky boy who has a tutor instead of his own big brother. I just remember this story by these characters but also there was unexpected
ending which kept me still. I was very amazed in a way of this story¡¯s ending that Rob Thomas had ended.

I highly recommend Doing Time because it has an insight into the lives of people the characters only thought they knew. The book is divided into several short segments dealing with students who need to complete community service for high school or who have other similar situations, but they all find out a dark secret about another character in each story. Young people will probably enjoy this because of its contemporary feel.

As usual, Rob Thomas is dead-on with the voice of his YA characters. The stories are funny and focused around a common theme that is familiar to most high school students. My only complaint is that the book feels unfinished since Thomas doesn't use the end of the book to return to the character of Randall, the college freshman he uses in the beginning of the collection to frame the stories.

I would recommend the book Doing Time to any reader who will give a book a chance. Rob Thomas wrote this book about 0 diferent Cmunnity Service stories. At a place called Lee High you have to have 200 hours of community service put in b4 you can graduate. In one of the chapters 2 people volonteer at a library and every wednesday there is a meeting of people who have lost pets. In another chapter A geeky young women starts volonteering at a type of Care/ Rehabilatation Center. A man that she fel l in love with a yar or 2 b4 has to go there b/c of a motocycle crsh. As i said this is a grate book and I woi=uldrecommend it.

I enjoyed this book immensely. I think that Thomas is fantastic at using perspective as a key, without making anything too unclear. I'd like to start an e-mail kids book club, so spread the news and e-mail me (Lucy) at the above adress, with your thoughts about this book.

In Doing Time- Notes from the undergrad, Rob Thomas who is the author tells 10 differant stories by using various student narrators. The students all have in common the fact that they have to do 200 hours of community service for their requirement for their school in order to graduate. In one story "Shacks from Mansions", a football player named Preston plays for the Dallas Cowboys. He is tutoring a boy named Randall. Preston was Randall's big brother. Randall learned a great amount from him. In another story there was a boy and a girl who worked for the library near them. The lirary held meetings every Wednesday. The meetings were about people discussing their emotions about their passed-away pets. One Wednesday when the boy was working he went into the backroom to get something. He accidentally overheard them talking. He looked through the shelves and saw a picture up on the wall of a dead pet. He learned that he did not want to go back to that library. This book was not recommended for children under the age of 12. Some of the language was explicit. I learned that it would be very difficult to do 200 hours of community service.