Rating: 
Summary: pleasant, like a stun gun is pleasant
Review: ...and on this day, the book i read was ms. zoe trope's first book, a memoir, please don't kill the freshman. i'd read good reviews and had been looking forward to its release. i had no idea about whether this young writer had any talent to speak of, i was simply curious, having recently left the horrors of high school behind me myself. zoe is my little sister's age. the very idea that my sister, though she is very bright, could be a writer of this caliber, is ludicrous. i was taken aback from the first page at this girl's evident gift for writing the most achingly personal prose i have read in a long time. this book, as the back cover told me, was about me. and indeed, it was. i too, was a lonely and angry freshman once, madly in love with my gay best friend and even more madly in love with my girlfriend, who was soon to become my boyfriend. i was not a vegetarian, but was enamored by them. i was so many of these things, but the one thing i was not, was articulate. i did not, and perhaps do not, have the great skill to capture this most tenuous and agonizing of times. zoe trope, i am happy to say. does. highly recommended.
Rating:
Summary: Beautiful
Review: A lot of people look down at this girl's writing, but it feels as though many avoid the writing. The read the story, and not the beautiful words that make up the story. The imagery in the story, the look on people, and the way that she can liven something to dull up with just a twist of words is absolutely amazing.People always misinterpret what talent really is. Any person can come up with a great plot, but not many can write in such a way. I'm fourteen years old, and live a different life than this girl, and I will admit that sometimes she did get a bit self centered, and lost... but that is part of being a teenager. It's all a part of growing, and as this is her own personal interpretation of life, it is supposed to be self centered. It is about her, and no one else. Anyone who is in high school, or has been in highschool, or has children in highschool, knows that every single boy and girl in that school is thinking about him or herself, that's why highschool is hell. That's why this book is so raw and up front, because that's what the years of 14 -18 are. Maybe I'm still young, and maybe I've never experienced it, but I've watched, and I've listened, and that's all you really need to do to be able to enjoy a book with such poetic insight. Not only does she portray real life, and real thoughts (which is what I think a lot of you overlook, that this is real, not just a story made up by a woman who thinks she knows all about character build up and how stress can alter different personalities) in a spectacular way, she makes them poetic, and awesome. Beautiful words are overlooked in society today. I read for them. If I want a story I will watch TV.
Rating: 
Summary: !!!
Review: Absolutely marvelous. A wondeful read, an honest voice a teenage
female angst, love, lust, longing, and ultimately: young confusion.
I'm sure the author will cringe when she's 35 and looks at what
she wrote and published at...15!
Rating:
Summary: Refreshing familiarity
Review: Expanded from an earlier chapbook, 'Please Don't Kill the Freshman' is an invigorating memoir chronicling Zoe's first two years in high school, including the publication of the previous chapbook and its subsequent popularity. Bouncing between brutal honesty and passionate embellishing, Zoe tells of her various friends, of falling in love with her gay best friends, of falling in love with boys and girls and what it means, of being outspoken in a world that values not peeking behind the curtain. The book seems staccato, but it's actually infused with immediacy in a way that is entirely original and equally derivative. This memoir harbors many contradictions, and yet it never becomes stale or uninteresting, but rather it reflects humanity as a whole in all its refreshing familiarity. 'Please Don't Kill the Freshman' is not a book easily forgotten.
Rating:
Summary: Awesome.
Review: How anyone could dislike this book is beyond me. I may be thought of as just a dumb child, someone who doesn't know anything because they are only 15, but I think people should listen to everyones opinion, even if it's just another youths thoughts.
This book is amazing. Zoe really captures what it's like to be different in high school. Growing and changing throughout the novel, she explains her life subtley yet makes it exciting to read. Her relationships with the people around her seem so real, it's like you actually know the characters.
I recommend that if you are a high school aged student, you should try reading this extraordinary book.
Rating:
Summary: Why not kill the freshmen?
Review: I bought this book because I'm in highschool and I hate it and because I want to be a writer. I gotta give Zoe credit for getting it published and actually writing the chapbook. The book is a little whiney in some places, though. The beginning is pretty good but then it starts to sound like it's all a pose. If you really hate highschool, don't expect to relate to this book.
Rating: 
Summary: Slightly Better Than My High School Newspaper
Review: I can probably only tell because I am a high-schooler, and I am not of the in crowd, but beware of taking all this at face value. The events are probably true, I can't discount those, but the attitude and style with which they are written seem to be less than genuine - as if Zoe were writing to a national audience the whole time, not a personal diary-type thing that would allow us to really care. It's cliched like my school newspaper yet shocking because the content would never make it past school censory.
It's always been said that high school is a madhouse, full of cliques and heartaches and other such drama, but I've never had major problems with it and it's because I didn't want to. There is certainly room for exaggerated and/or satirical interpretations of that 4-year period however, which is how I choose to view this book. I was a little disappointed, but maybe because I set my expectations too high in the first place (I was just excited when I read about a girl my age from my area getting published).
Rating:
Summary: I love PDKTF
Review: I could use many words to talk about how wonderful this book is. But i will keep it simple. Everyone: should read it. I never knew you could fall in love with a book, but i have, i have. I love Trope's writing and everything she writes about. It was a great piece about highschool life, etc.
Rating:
Summary: Zoe made me do it.
Review: I don't think "Please Don't Kill the Freshman" should be deemed "the best young adult book or all time," but I do think that it's an awesome book. Any teen or adult [weather identifiably gay or otherwise] who likes to read a little bit above the status quo should pick up this book and read it. It's written by someone 'our' own age, and it makes it a little bit easier to identify. And just because she told me to:
"She talks about gay people and uses the F word, yay!" 5 stars. <3
Rating:
Summary: If you want to sing out, sing out.
Review: I don't understand why this book has received such a plethera of negative comments. I am a highschool freshman living in the city where this book takes place. Perhaps this gave me some sort of insight, but I doubt it. I read another review from a freshman stating that he disliked it because it talked about homosexuality and used the 'eff' word. This, however, is why I liked it. It was real and uninhibited.
It is certainly not something your average 9th grader would read, and because aparently not everybody can deal with homosexuality and the word 'f*ck',it takes a level of "maturity". But I know very few people who would have had the balls to submit a piece of literature like this one... its amazing. So, I dare you to go buy it. read it. enjoy it.
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