Customer Reviews

Rash

5 star:		(7)
4 star:		(6)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This is a real page-turner of a novel which also made me think and stayed with me after I got to the end. The narrator is a product of a disturbing future in which society has over-protected itself in a ridiculous but scary manner. Along with the dangers of bears, bullies, and brutal football is fun humor and winningly eccentric characters, including Bo the main character who has a wry, engaging voice. One of my favorite books of 2006.

Rash by Pete Hautman is a wry look at a possible 2070s United States, now called the USSA (United Safer States of America? United Socialist States of America?). In this dystopian society, Americans (as well as people in most other countries) have traded freedom and independence for safety. It's no longer legal to play football, or to run without wearing extensive padding a helmet. Alcohol, cigarettes, temper tantrums, hunting, large dogs - all illegal. Three quarters of people over the age of ten are on the drug Levulor, which slows their reflexes, and helps them to keep their tempers in check.

Levulor apparently doesn't work all that well, though, because twenty-four percent of adults are in prison. The government uses prison labor to do the jobs that other people don't want to do, like cleaning septic systems, working on roads, and making frozen food products. People are carted off for all sorts of minor infractions (including "self-mutilation", which can include weighing too much), because their labor is needed in the work camps.

Rash is the story of sixteen-year-old Bo, who lives with his ineffectual mother and his nostalgic Gramps, while his father and older brother are off in prison. Sandbagged by a rival, Bo is unfairly blamed for a mysterious rash that spreads through his school. Pushed to the breaking point, he lashes out against his rival, and is sentenced to three years of labor in a prison camp up in the (former) Canadian tundra. The workers in this camp spend 18 hours a day, seven days a week, making pizzas. The camp actually reminded me a lot of the youth offender camp in "Holes", but set in a much colder climate.

Taken out of the protective cushion of society, Bo encounters things he's never seen before. Deliberate violence and cruelty. Football. Polar bears. And, surprisingly, the feeling of being part of a team. Meanwhile, an artificial intelligence agent that Bo created before he left evolves into a sentient being called Bork. Bork starts communicating with Bo, and works to rescue him from a land of endless pizza and football.

I liked double-entendre of "rash" in the book. Bo is wrongly accused of creating a rash. His real crime is his own rash behavior, in a society where being rash is just about the worst thing a person can be. I also enjoyed the character of Gramps, constantly reminiscing about his youth (when people could actually own guns, and buy beer in restaurants, and wear sneakers). Bork is also a lot of fun - Hautman does a nice job of capturing his gradual shift from computer to independent thinker, and his development of a sense of humor.

Overall, I found Rash to be a fast read, one that grabbed my attention from the first page, and didn't let go until I finished. In addition to reminding me of "Holes", Rash evoked a more benign "1984". What's disturbing about this book is that our society is right now on a slippery slope, trading off freedom for safety. We face these questions every day. Hautman takes a look at how sterile and monotonous our society could become, if this balance slips too far. He does this while simultaneously giving us a fast-moving plot with teen-friendly trappings (hand-held computers, artificial intelligence, pizza, football, and teen male posturing). All in all, I found it to be a masterful accomplishment from this National Book Award winning author (for Godless).

This book review was originally published on my blog, Jen Robinson's Book Page, on July 20th, 2006.

Bo Marsten is living in the tail end of this century in the "USSA", a place where beer and french fries are outlawed, a good percent of the population is on a Ritalin-like drug, sports can only be played with maximum protective clothing, and manual labor is performed by people arrested for "rage" crimes. Bo's speech and action will seem like a normal teen's to the reader, but he winds up incarcerated for fighting with a classmate over a girl (using his fists, not weapons). He is placed in a work camp run by McDonald's and set in the frigid wilds of Canada. Like "Holes," the wardens are corrupt, the other inmates aggressive, and the environment punishing. Bo manages to become part of an elite group of boys who play football, the old-fashioned kind that is outlawed in the rest of the country. Meanwhile, an A1 program that Bo created in school has mutated and acquired a "life" of its own. The creation, called a web ghost, may just be able to spring Bo from his sentence early.

The book is an original, thought-provoking read. Just a decade ago, kids didn't wear bicycle helmets; could mandatory law be possible in the future? The only flaw is that apart from Bo and the A1, there is minimal character development. In "Holes" the relationship between Stanley and Zero helped give Stanley's character more depth. I also wanted more backstory on Bo. Had he really always had a bad temper, or did it develop when he became a teenager? Did the government/school do other things besides prescribe meds for people who were potential discipline problems?
How did he deal with his father leaving the first time? But I guess those questions were outside the scope of the book.

Picture, if you will, life in the year 2076. You are living in The United Safer States of America and things such as obesity, verbal abuse, and dangerous activities are against the law. The legal driving age is twenty-six. Even sports such as football are illegal. Sports that are allowed are hindered due to all the safety gear the participants are required to wear. This is the world that sixteen-year-old Bo Marsten inhabits.

Bo has inherited a bit of a temper from his father who has been in prison since 2073 for road rage. He has been in trouble at school many times for "failing to control his antisocial impulses," but when he is falsely accused of causing a rash that spreads throughout the school, his anger gets the best of him and he assaults a classmate. This action lands him in a work camp in the middle of the Canadian tundra that is surrounded by hungry polar bears.

The work camp Bo is sent to is a factory that makes pizzas. He becomes a member of a four man team with the responsibility of using the pepperoni gun. Each pull of the trigger on the pepperoni gun delivers twenty-six pepperoni on each pizza. When the team works in sync, life isn't so bad. There is only one group that causes Bo problems while he is there, the Goldshirts. The Goldshirts are an elite group at the pizza factory that have special privileges like a variety of food, when the others only have defective pizzas to eat for every meal, every day. The Goldshirts main job is to play football for the warden.

All new editions to the work camp eventually have a tryout in front of the warden. This entails running and catching a pass. If you catch it, you become a Goldshirt and are placed on the team. Bo makes the team and experiences physical activity without protective gear for the first time in his life. The warden requires that the team practice every day for several hours in order to prepare for an illegal game with another work camp. If you want to remain a Goldshirt, you play even if you are injured.

After surviving work camp and brutal football games, Bo, with the help of an unlikely attorney, is released from his sentence and allowed to go home. Bo begins to think about life in the USSA and considers where else he can go that would allow more freedom.

Pete Hautman has written a unique sports novel for the sci-fi/fantasy lover. This interesting look at what might happen to a society more concerned with safety than freedom is a page-turner. The reader will enjoy comparing today's life with the life Hautman has created.

Reviewed by: Karin Perry

Hautman's Godless remains one of my favorite teen books, and this one is almost as good. Like many other great science fiction novels, this is social commentary in disguise: Hautman conjures up a sinister future world that has taken some of our current obsessions to extremes, yielding nightmarish results. While I usually think the age recommendations for fiction are too low, the recommendation for this one is too high: middle schoolers will enjoy this book too.

Dystopia. It's the opposite of Utopia. It's a futuristic world where best intentions bring horrific results. And our protagonist, Bo Marsten, is stuck in one in the year 2074 in a country called the United Safer States of America (USSA), where just about everything with a whiff of danger is illegal.

But don't be fooled, especially if you are a teenage boy who likes football better than reading. This is really a football book, plain and simple, because football is illegal in the USSA, and when Bo gets sent to prison in the Canadian tundra for his violent temper (punching high school classmates -- not to mention calling them names -- is illegal, you see), he winds up on the warden's special "gold shirts" football team.

Turns out, Bo Marsten likes football. He likes hitting and running like the wind to avoid GETTING hit. The wrinkle here is that the football field at his prison is fenced in so that the polar bears of the tundra don't get in, and if the ball goes over the fence, then you have to go get it -- before the bear gets you, that is.

RASH is a bit predictable, but this is a small matter considering its strength is its fast-paced plot tailor-made for reluctant reading boys who love sports (and especially football). The heart of the book is the middle section, at the tundra prison, where you will meet wonderful characters like the warden, Elwin Hammer, a beefy menace who calls his charges "nails" (to be hammered into place if they act up, you see). Then there's Bo's 300-pound roomie, Rhino. His special play is the "nose dozer," where you give Rhino the ball and let him slowly gain momentum while opposing players try to tackle him. Lastly, there are the Bears. And I don't mean the kind from Chicago.

The beginning high school scenes and the anti-climactic final section are not as thrilling as the heart of the book, but that won't deter young readers. Trust me when I say that there's less "rash" and more "dash" to this book -- as in, the dash of a fullback heading upfield for a touchdown while an opposing prison football team gives pursuit. If you're a boy who likes football, check this book out. If you're a parent or teacher of a boy who likes football (but not reading so much), check this book out FOR him. You (and he) won't be disappointed.

this was a great book it's funny to hear an idea of what the future will be like and what the people living in the future think of our lives right now. Great book by Pete hautman looking foward to reading more of his books

The book is about a boy in the late 21st century where the world is as strict as can be with football, tattoos, alcohol, fast food all being illegal. The main character goes through a series of problems that he deals with either by running as a track star or going to his grandpa for advice, who lived in the current period of time and had a much different view of society in the current setting of the book. The book executed three elements very exceptionally with the first being the setting, as it happens to be very intriguing because everything is so different its almost silly. Another element I liked was its plot because it was simple but it still pulled you in, it doesn't try to be more complicated than it has to to entertain you. And last the structure of the story was clearly formed around the main characters view on life and how it changes throughout, its broken down into chapters introducing a new problem that has a snowball effect and you wonder how it is going to stop. I loved the plot more than anything in the story because it's simple and easy to understand, it tells a story unlike other books that make you ask questions about the story. The only problem I did have with the book is that halfway through it gets a little dull, it turns around in the end but it felt like I was forcing myself to read in the middle of it. But overall it's a great book, considering I don't like to read avid readers would love it.

I picked up the book at a library and read through it within the day... obviously it was quite a page turner. I only lost interest once or twice and it was only for a page. Bo's character had interesting and realistic development and the society was not completely unreal... the idea that freedom was sacrificed for safety is a common philosophical debate and was interesting to see the extreme of one side. It also amused me because Gramps was born in 1990, only a year older than me :o).
Overall, I really liked it. It wasn't anything too special though and reminded me of Holes, a lot. I'd read more books by this author but I wouldn't pay much for it.

Hautman asks a simple question: How much safety is too much?
He also asks a related question: When something (even safety) is overdone, who will benefit from it?

"Rash" is funny and thought provoking. The hero starts out sounding like a loser, but at the end, I was cheering for him!