Just Plain Weird [Paperback]

Tom Upton (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 12, 2008

Travis MacDuff has always led an uneventful life. His greatest concern was making the high school football, until an odd girl moves in next store, a girl whose secrets threaten not only his existence but the existence of everyone on the planet.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"Upton is a talented writer, and it is quite clear that he is at his creative best when he writes within the paranormal genre"-- Onebuzzbrain

About the Author

Tom Upton was born in Chicago. He attended Columbia College, where he studied writing and film.
     Upton has written Just Plain Weird, a young adult novel, Scarecrows, a very dark tale of horror, and Mourning Doves, a short story collection.
     His other interests including animal rights and senior and disabled rights. 
     He is writing the Freaky Jules e-book series, a young adult paranormal series of novellas. Freaky Jules #1 (Vanished) and Freaky Jules#2 (Pants on Fire) have already been published. Freaky Jules#3 (Hellhounds) will be available shortly.
     He now lives in the rural Midwest, with his wife and two teenaged daughters.

Product Details

• Paperback: 316 pages
• Publisher: CreateSpace (September 12, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 143822222X
• ISBN-13: 978-1438222226
• Product Dimensions: 8 x 5 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 14.7 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,407,899 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Tom Upton was born in Chicago. He attended Columbia College, where he studied writing and film.

Upton has written Just Plain Weird, a young adult novel, Scarecrows, a very dark tale of horror, and Mourning Doves, a short story collection.

His other interests including animal rights and senior and disabled rights.

He is writing the Freaky Jules e-book series, a young adult paranormal
series of novellas. Freaky Jules #1 (Vanished) and Freaky Jules#2 (Pants on Fire) have already been published. Freaky Jules#3 (Hellhounds) will be available shortly.

He now lives in the rural Midwest, with his wife and two teenaged daughters.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars One of the funnest reads that I've had in a long time, I just loved this one!, November 12, 2010

By 

D. Arnold "ColoradoHermit" (Canon City, Colorado USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Just Plain Weird (Kindle Edition)

As the title says, this story is "Just Plain Weird". About the time you think it can't get any weirder, sure enough it does! Its one long romp from one thing to the next with a lot of weird mixed in. It has nice balance with the weird and the plausible that pretty much keeps the story close to something possible. That's what helps keep the story interesting enough that you just won't want to put it down. So make sure you have plenty of time before you start reading it.

"Spoiler Warning" After posting this review I thought maybe I should put in this warning. Some people might consider parts of the rest of my review as a spoiler by telling too much of the story plot & etc. I tried to tell enough to let you know what its about and get you interested without telling too much of it. So don't say I spoiled the story for you by telling too much if you read past this.

This was one fun read! Once I started reading it and got about 3 pages into it I just couldn't put it down till I had finished it, at about 2:30 in the morning! I haven't run across a book that has done that to me in a long time. It starts out with the teenage boy, 15 yr old Travis, from a upper lower class or lower middle class family that has some new people move in next door. When they moved in he noticed that there was a pretty girl about his age that was part of the family that moved in. It didn't take long for him to notice that things were a little weird about them. He gets curious when he notices that no one has entered or left the house after they had first moved in and that neither of the two cars in the drive have moved. So he starts watching the house with his telescope from his tree house in his back yard.

He only has one friend, of the geek variety that's pretty weird himself, that he just calls Raffles. Raffles catches Travis spying on the house next door from the tree house and talks him into going over and give them a "welcome to the neighborhood visit" to see what they can find out about them. That's when Travis gets his first good look at Eliza, the girl next door, and falls instantly in love with her. Being an average guy it takes him a while to figure out that he has fallen in love with her. It's during they're welcome visit that Raffles notices something weird about the house next door. It's bigger on the inside than it is on the outside.

The next day Travis gets to finally talk to Eliza when she comes outside and starts to mow the backyard. He ends up helping her with all the yard work and after a bit of a touchy first start they get more comfortable with each other and it isn't long before they have that feeling that they've known each other for years. After they finish the yard work Eliza takes Travis out for a drive in a nice brand new Lexus and that's when things start getting very weird.

From there things move pretty fast. They get involved with an alien artifact that is several hundred thousands of yrs old. The artifact turns out to be a space ship that has lost its crew and has been waiting all those yrs for someone to tell it what to do. So they decide to help it get back to its home by doing a little time traveling with it and end up breaking the moon, helping another set of aliens find the earth that strips the planet of all its resources and wipes out all life on the Earth.

After a lot of other side adventures they eventually get everything fixed, the time line straightened out, fix the moon, and make it so that the evil aliens don't find the earth. Putting everything pretty much back to normal before they head off looking for something else wild to do for fun.

There is one thing that should be fixed. It was very poorly edited and has several places where the words and the spelling are mixed to the point its almost dyslexic. Even the most basic word program could have corrected a lot of mistakes in its writing. Its like it was written using only "note pad". Frequently there's at least a couple of mistakes on almost every page and quit often there's several mistakes to a page. It gets to the point that its frequently distracting and breaks the flow of the reading to the point of being irritating. But these are things that are mostly the publishers fault and doesn't change the story or keep it from being a fun and entertaining read.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A hit with my 9 year old, November 5, 2009

By 

Lifelong Learner "L.L." (Mayland) - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Just Plain Weird (Paperback)

My 9-year old son is an avid reader. In his words, "the book wasn't as funny as I expected," but was still completely engrossing to him.

5.0 out of 5 stars Wildly Imaginative, and Often Hilarious, October 8, 2011

By 

Sandy Handy "crazyhorse17" (illinois) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Just Plain Weird (Paperback)

I found Just Plain Weird one of the most enjoyable books I've read in quite some time. As the title suggests, things get stranger and stranger as the story progress. Although there are very funny moments, there is also a somber message about Fate: if two people are meant to be together, they will be together, no matter what bizarre roads they end up taking to get to the same place.