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Summary: 10th Grade and the author
Review: I recently read this book and thoroughly enjoyed it. Reading about the ups and downs with Jeremy was classic and the teen age mind was captured brilliantly by Joe Weisberg. Living in Chicago, where Joe grew up, I had the pleasure through a friend of mine to meet him. I am in a recently formed book club of 20 somethings and for our first read we read 10th Grade. When we met for our first meeting, our moderator was no other than Joe Weisberg! It was amazing. Joe met us at a friends house whom he also knew and 12 of us sat around and talked about the book. Joe was very down to earth and it was really great to hear first hand how he wrote the book and what was going through his mind. He was attentive and has a very endearing quality to him that made our whole group feel comfortable. At the end he signed our books and even took pictures with us. It was cool to hang out with an author who was willing to meet us and give us his insights. I was very impressed. I wish him all the best on his next book which he said he has already started working on.
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Summary: 10th Grade is wonderful
Review: I thoroughly enjoyed 10th Grade, a wonderful, funny novel. Other reviews have called it a "knowing glimpse" and "absolutely credible" account of high school life. As a high school teacher, I find the novel to even more compelling. It rings true for me, as I remember my own experiences and as I see life through the eyes of my current students. Unlike many recent books about teens, Mr. Weisberg captures the underlying truth of adolescence, that life is marked not by hyperbolic and surreal events (teen suicide, incest, drug overdoses) but rather that these years are ones of yearning, frustration, and of love, real or imagined. In the language and tone of his protagonist we experience sophomore year, from the opening of school to the Prom. Weisberg's characters are thoroughly developed and come to life in these pages. The novel is both hysterically funny and honest. As I read it, I laughed out loud and felt a strong sense of deja vu. While I would never wish to be back in high school, Weisberg's 10th Grade made it worth visiting.
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Summary: The the Unwavering Voice of Jeremy Reskin
Review: I thought the power of "10th Grade" was that it never once wavered from the voice of Jeremiah Reskin. He never knows more than he as 10th grader would know. He is utterly himself, plain and simple, and we trust him. He is subtly very funny. I loved the line where he said "My father loves to read I mean loves." The truth in the sentence structure I found exciting. The format of the entire book is Jeremiah's essay or journal of 10th grade and it's full of funny and inventive linguistic and grammatical challenges. The book is linear as far as time, but in writing a school essay about the year it couldn't be any other way. It is totally justified in its linearity. Most importantly, the voice rings true and gives us a window into the mind of a regular guy who is going through the emotional tumult of growing up with a laid back attitude and a poker face.
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Summary: Hard to get through and dull
Review: I understand the reason why it is written in such short form, but I hated it. It was way too much. Way over the top. It makes for such a difficult read. The book was pretty dull anyway. Not much happens here.
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Summary: The Truth
Review: If you're looking for insight into the life and mind of a high school boy, put this book down. Although certain aspects of the novel are somewhat similar to those of tenth grade guy's life, most of the book is completely absurd. The thoughts of the story's narrator are both bizarre and ridiculous. Maybe if this book were written by an unmedicated third grade psychopath, it might be more accurate. Furthermore, Weisberg's attempt to imitate the grammar and writing style of a tenth grader are both annoying and wholly inaccurate. However, with all that said, the book is somewhat comedic and it's suspense keeps the pages turning. P.S. I am a tenth grader
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Summary: Doesn't quite capture it
Review: If your'e looking for a witty insight into the teenage years, this novel while sometimes funny just doesn't quite cut it. It has it's moments but overall there are far better efforts out there. "Sloppy Firsts" is wittier and much funnier, albeit it is written from a female perspective. This one tends to ramble on too much, although it did provide numerous obscure late "70's" references that unless you were a teenager in those years would pass right by (ie, how many people remember the lyrics to the Dan Hill song, "Sometimes when we touch?"). Overall not a bad quick summer read, but you will have to look elsewhere for more substance.
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Summary: typical sophomore
Review: Jeremy was a charater that describe 10th graders exactaly how they are. This book showed him going through different stages and him maturing. But this is how it it. He talks about girl's bodies and is infactuated with boobs. He also handles the struggle though his soccer seasons.
Jeremy is a good kid and many of the girls thinks he is sweet and kind. But his mind isn't always in the best place. Buthe sees how girls have their different feelings though out the book and seems to mature a little more. This was an easy read book and i recomend it to anyone that likes a stories that dont take alot to think.
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Summary: an amazing piece of 10th grade narrative
Review: Joe Wiesberg speaks for all us sophomores (since i am one) in this book which encompasses the everyday hassles and perks of high school life without nuseancey commas much like this review completely devoid of extrarraneous wrapping and simply the boiled down thoughts of the individual. I applaud you Joe and wish you the best of luck!
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Summary: Sweet and evocative
Review: Joseph Weisberg has written a splendid novel, creating a narrative voice that sparkles with youth's promise. Wonderfully evocative of a recent past that was more innocent than today. I highly recommend this funny, warm, and tender novel. It's a deceptively simple book that I read in a single sitting. Its good vibrations have stayed with me long after closing the back cover.
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Summary: Accomplished and absorbing first novel
Review: Joseph Weisberg's "10th Grade" is an accomplished and absorbing first novel. I have a soft spot for anything that takes place during the years I was in high school myself (late 1970s and early 1980s), as this does. But my predisposition to like the book because of that was amply rewarded by a story that is, by turns, laugh-out-loud hilarious, furiously serious, and as awkward as everyone's high school years are at some point. Jeremy Ruskin is a sophomore at Hutch Falls High School in Hutch Falls, New Jersey. Although we gradually glean that he's an athlete, he has all the inner goofiness and questions of a major dork--which endears him to the reader. Weisberg has a razor-sharp ear for dialogue, and for the pseudo-sophisticated tone many teenagers take, as shown below. And please note: you get over the lack of punctuation pretty quickly--it just adds to the idea that Jeremy is writing this journal for a class and isn't overly concerned with it being perfectly correct as far as grammar and punctuation. "I don't eat meat" Caroline says she takes a cucumber out of a baggie and holds it up. "Do you always bring lunch?" Gillian says. "Yeah my Mom makes it" I say and then I feel stupid because don't most people make their own lunch? "My Mom can't even make a sandwich" Gillian says. "What do you eat?" I ask. "We go to a restaurant called Olives a lot." Eating out a lot is not a good sign of family togetherness. Caroline says "My Mom cooks but it's all like hello do you know I'm a vegetarian?" She puts a piece of celery between her 2 lips. Another dead-on bit takes place when Jeremy is in the Limited shopping with his sister Claire: Claire holds the blue dress up and I think it looks good but I don't say anything because I'm a guy and what do guys know about it. Except she says "do you like it? so then I say "definitely" and then she puts it back anyway proving what I said. Witness the following description of a family vacation in England: My Dad of course found the cheapest hotel in Europe in 1 of his "Cheapest Weirdest and Grossest Places in the World" guidebooks . . . Anyway we go to all the museums where I'm bored and so's my Mom and so's Beth but Claire and my Dad are in Museum Heaven. Claire can look at a painting forever my Dad can look at the little plaque about who painted it and where and when and who gave it to the museum forever because it's like reading. Me and Mom and Beth finally have a revolt and declare we're not going with them to the National Museum of Boring Paintings that day and we go off but then they go to shop so I wander around England alone for awhile and it's kind of cool . . . Possibly the funniest episode--and one that will strike a chord with anyone who's ever been a horny teenage
boy--is the part where Jeremy buys a porno magazine: I head for the train station. I look about 5000 times to see if you can see through the bag and even though you can't if you hold it up to the light and you're about a 10th of an inch away you can see the outline of the bottom of a naked t-t. I keep walking and finally I get on the train. Now I could know anybody on the train and I swear it's like the bag has basically huge letters on it that say "JEREMIAHS RAUNCHY FRENCH LUST PORNO HE JUST BOUGHT" . . . I would probably see Renee [the girl he has a crush on] at the train station in Hutch Falls and she'd say "hi Jeremy" and we'd talk for a second in Spanish and then she'd say "what's in your bag?" "Sports Illustrated". Then she'd say "Oh can I see it? There's this article I heard about." About some tennis player or something. And I'd say "Yeah but excuse me because I have to go kill myself" . . . I took a cab home possible people who were home were my Mom who would look at the bag and instantly know what was in there because she's psychic about anything you don't want her to know so she'd be like "Jeremy is that issue number 62 of French Lust?" And on and on and on. There's such wonderful stuff here. Weisberg gets it exactly right when he shows the fluidity of teenage relationships, the uncertainty on the part of teenagers--as far as what their personality and values are, how to deal with friends and crushes and family--and how to react to what they see as wrongdoing or dysfunction. He also gets the ending exactly right. We don't know, really, where or how Jeremy is going to end up--but it's a superbly entertaining and truthful ride along the way.
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