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6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
his best book., February 13, 1998
By A Customer
All of Gordon Korman's work is a variation on the Bruno and Boots theme: two boys, one timid and responsible, the other adventurous, imaginative, and maybe crazy, forge a friendship. The Boots character never changes much, so I suppose that that's what Korman's really like. The Bruno character has a greater range, and that range is an exploration of the imaginative, "crazy" trait. In Bruno, this craziness takes the adolescent form of juvenile rebelliousness. Sometimes the craziness resembles genius, as in Bugs Potter, that kid from I Want To Go Home, and that money-maker from No Coins Please (I forget the names); sometimes it's closer to delusional, as in Our Man Weston and Raymond Jardine. At the heart of this craziness, is, I think, an unwillingness to be part of society. As Korman got older, Bruno's rebelliousness became in other characters ways of rejecting or escaping the world. Mike Otis, in Don't Care High, is the closest Korman ever came to writing about what this craziness really is. Otis is absolutely unable to comprehend reality, or maybe he just can't deal with it, so he creates his own. He builds his own car from scratch; his self-sufficiency is mystifying to all who witness it. He's totally alone in his reality, and that's the key to Korman: his most imaginative character is his loneliest. I wonder whether this may have been a hard book for Korman to write. There's this terrific and moving scene, in which all the students of Don't Care High gather to consider Mike (I won't give away any details). A lot of Korman's books have great scenes near the end, and there's always a lot going on in them, so they tend toward the spectacular, the crowd-pleasing. But this scene seems more... I don't know. Religious, maybe. I know that sounds like a weird thing to say. It's the only thing I can come up with. Anyway, Korman was one of my favorite childhood authors, and I think this book is his purest, that is, it comes closest to what he always wanted to do. Bruno is fascinating to Korman, because I think that Korman is probably Boots, an essentially timid guy who watches and is caught up in the adventures of others. But deeper than that, I think he's fascinated by that "crazy" quality of rejecting or escaping the world. He's not going to do it, but he may want to.
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4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
The guide to surviving high school with your humor intact, September 16, 1999
By A Customer
This review is from: Don't Care High (Paperback)
I have read this book at least twice a year ever since I discovered it in 9th grade. Almost 10 years later, I still think it is the funniest, most honest book about the alienation every kid feels in high school, and people that you wished were by your side through it - not because they were perfect or always knew exactly what to say, but because they were more human than most of the people you had to go to school with. I remember reading the book out loud to my mother on car trips, and she stole the book from me just so she could read it faster, she liked it so much. It transcends age groups.
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2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Fun, July 14, 2004
This review is from: Don't Care High (Paperback)
This book is great for young adults, I was sixteen when I read it. I began under what I think is the best possibly condition: I had no idea what it was about or what to expect. Someone had suggested the author to be becase of his humor, so I got a copy of what I could find...let's just say my copy didn't exactly have a cover.
I was hooked from the start and finished the whole thing in a few straight hours, which is a rare occurance for me. Gordon Korman really knows how to spin an engaging and creative story, with plenty of laughs and an interesting cast of characters. The story is about a weird high school full of kids who just don't care, they're semi-zombies oblivious to almost everything around them, because they just don't care. I know it sounds crazy. Our hero is new in town and has just transferred to this stange school. I won't spoil the rest for you, the surprises are what make the story so much fun to read. I'll definitely be grabbing any other young adult books I can find by the author.
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