Rats Saw God

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Summary: Hard to believe book
Review: What happens to the main character, Rob, is highly unlikely. I mean, he gets into Harvard with a bad attendence rate and horrid GPAs, it is not possible in real life to get into Harvard, of all colleges, with that sort of record. The writing style was rather dull, not my type of thing. Overall, if you like a little fantasy and sci-fi in a high school setting, you may want to read this. As for me, I didn't like it.

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Summary: self-help in a doo rag: amazing book!
Review: this book was required reading for my adolescent literature in education class. i wasn't quite sure how to react to the title, but after a few pages, i became so engrossed with the story of steve, a pot-head honor student (oxymoron, perhaps?), that the title no longer was so significant. rob thomas chronicles steve's rise and fall in a sometimes odd, sometimes sad, often hilarious trek through the teen psyche. our class decided overwhelmingly that such a book would be perfect for teaching troubled and gifted students alike. we also felt that parents would gain great insight by reading rob thomas's "rats saw god"

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Summary: Chris Lynch is Block honest and Lynch tough
Review: "Rats Saw God" is a painful and true book, unlike 90% of teen literature out there. Rob Thomas writes with the honesty of Francesca Lia Block, but removes Block's quasi-psychadelica and adds in his own life. To steal a quote from a review of Heavens to Betsy, this book is a gem: hard, sharp, and beautiful. The only downfall to it is that it falls into a somewhat predictable set of cliches in the middle, but it quickly recovers and packs the same amount of punch. I reccomend this to anyone who enjoys Chris Lynch or Francesca Lia Block

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Summary: A guy who writes about who his life went down.
Review: This book, not one with a very catchy title, is actually very good to what I had thought before hand. The story develops around the main character, Steve York, who is a senior high school student living with his father in Houston, Texas. What happens is that his parents have divorced, he is on drugs, has horrible grades in school and may not graduate to college. Meanwhile, his father Alan York, is a respected astronaut that works intensely for NASA and expects his son to be a big guy, expects a lot from him. The book switches back and forth from the present in his senior year and to his junior year. The parts about his junior year are there because he is writing an essay that can save him from failing and make him graduated. The schools counselor assigned this assignment to him in order to help him in his grades, he was told to write about what he knew, so he writes about his junior year in Houston, Texas. The stories settings are Houston, Texas where his junior year takes place, and in San Diego, California which is where he is writing this essay for senior year. The entire story is developed in a first person point of view, the point of view of Steve York. The plot, in his junior year is about how he and some friends are at the top of popularity and fame, how they form a club of dadaists named GOD, and how he falls passionately in love with a classmate named Wanda, who is mostly referred as Dub and is another major character in the book. The other plot, in his senior year is how he is forced to cope with his parents remarrying and how drugs and bad grades affect his life, how he makes friends with a girl and how everything, at the end, turns out perfectly fine. I think the main story is what happens with him and his girlfriend Dub in his junior year, how they both are in love, how they both trust and care for each other and ultimately have sex together which is a big thing. And how it all ends when he moves to San Diego, California and cant live there without her so he comes back to Houston, Texas and finds her with one of his teachers, um... well, having sex. So he is broken hearted and leaves. The other main story is how he and his father who he calls 'astronaut' coexist and go through the troubles of life. And how they at the end become loving son and father and realize how good things are. So mainly what happens is how he pulls his life back in course and gets to go to Harvard and makes it into the world. I really liked the authors' way of writing, it is funny, then suspenseful, then exciting and the romantic, he has a real good feel and writes like a teenager. The theme for this is probably to realize what you have, make the best out of everything and see that in the end, everything will work out and be fine. This book, available to anyone in the school library, I would say is for teenagers about 14 or 14 to maybe 18 to 21. It contains a good message and story, also contains a lot of the talk about how they have sex (making it a good thing, not anything perverted or anything) and how Steve suffers. It also contains a lot of how they party, drink and play games. This is overall a very good book I would really recommend to teenagers, it has a lot to do with us.

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Summary: Also by the author
Review: If you like Rats Saw God, check out "Pet Stories" in the September issue of Seventeen Magazine. For more information, visit my homepage. Also, Dad, thanks for the kind review

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Summary: Real, honest, and sincere depiction of youth in conflict
Review: Rob Thomas has written a true depiction of at risk youth coming to grips with problems involving family, friends, and school. His comedic approach does not rely on making school personnel look like total idiots, but rather, he creates situations so real that all can identify, and laugh and cry, with Steven York. The heart-warming story of conflict and resolution with parents and friends is witty, current in its commentary, and deeply meaningful to anyone who has had a relationship with someone of the opposite sex. One of the best young adult novels I have ever read.

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Summary: If you likesomething funny this would be your type of book
Review: I've read this book twice now and it is probably one of my favorite books, and trust me, that's saying something when you look at the lists of books I've read over my short life time. Rats Saw God takes place between two sort of realties -current time in San Francisco where Steve York is writing novel-length essay for his guidance councilor who in turn will waive an english credit he is missing for Graduation. Steve is told to write what he knows, so he does. The second reality, is a year or so earlier when he was living with his father "the astronaut", in Austin Texas. He meets a lot of people, in particular his best friend Doug, and his girlfriend, Dub (Wanda), who in turn breaks his heart and sends him packing to 'Frisco to live with his mother and younger sister where he gets mixed up in drugs, and cutting class, scraping by with passing grades.
Like I said, I've read the book twice, and have also read a few others by Dave Thomas, but neither are as good as Rats Saw God. Check it out, and I'm sure it will at least strike your interest in some way.

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Summary: NOT for teens!
Review: As a mom of 7 children (0-19 yrs) I cannot believe teachers & librarians actually think this is a good book for ANY teen to read. It disturbs me that it is being recommended to high school students, and even younger. This book contains explicit "how-to" instructions for first-time sex, with no consequences. Of course, it also includes detailed instructions on proper use of condoms, so maybe that's why its acceptable for teachers to recommend this "soft-porn" to teenagers with raging hormones. I just dont get it. Certainly there's something better educated adults could encourage these students to read!

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Summary: Best Sellers Class
Review: Steve York has almost no chance of graduating. He'd always been an intelligent, straight-A student until his first heartbreak causes him to go into self-destruction mode. His guidance counselor, Mr. DeMouy, decides to give him one last chance to make up the English credit he's missing. He must write a 100-page essay on anything he likes. Steve is reluctant to accept, but realizes he has no other choice than to do this if he wants to graduate. He pondered all his choices, his parents divorce, how his father was a famous astronaut, GOD (Grace Organization of Dadaists), a club him and a friend were in charge of to spite the school, when any of these ideas failed to please him, he decides to morph them all together and write about something he knew 100 pages worth of information about, his past in Texas. As the story unfolds you meet his best friend, Doug and later his first love, Dub. Steve tries hard to keep himself together as he begins to write about the romance that ended horribly between Dub and himself, but it was harder than he'd imagined until he meets a girl in California, where he lives now, named Allison Kimble. She helps him realize that Dub was an important part of his life and its good to still remember her and their time together but to also realize that what's in the past is there for a reason and to be strong and move on.

I was very impressed by Thomas' work. This was his first novel and he was able to keep the attention of the reader by have the split style format between the past and now. The book was a little slow in the beginning but once the reader got through that the book seemed to begin to bare Steve's soul and the reader could really begin to feel all of Steve's emotions. This book was definitely a good choice, for girls over boys. But, if people cannot keep up with the past and present split they might not enjoy this book and would find it rather confusing.


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Summary: A Great Book for Teens
Review: Rats Saw God is an engaging, fast-paced read that will appeal to older teens, particularly to teenage boys who may be searching for a representative voice in young adult literature. Thomas's protagonist, Steve York, vaguely reminiscent of Holden Caulfield, is one of those quick-witted, smart-but-doesn't-like-to-show-it, sensitive teenagers who is more of an observer than a participant in his high school and family life.
The book has a unique style, jumping back and forth between Steve's sophomore year in high school in Houston, where he was living with his divorced father, to present day San Diego, where he is completing his senior year while living with his mother and sister. The Houston episodes are told in the form of an essay Steve's perceptive senior year counselor, Mr. DeMouy, makes him write in order to graduate, since Steve has let his grades slip. The story of Steve's high school life in Houston involve him co-founding a Dadaist club called "GOD" (for Grace Order of Dadaists, Grace being the name of the high school) with his friend Doug, and meeting Wanda Varner, known as Dub, and beginning a relationship with her that quickly becomes intense, but ultimately ends in heartbreak of the worst kind.
Steve also chronicles his relationship with his family, including his resentment for his successful, astronaut father, who he blames for causing his parents divorce, and his deepening relationship with his younger sister, Sarah. In the present day, San Diego episodes, also told in first person narrative, Steve, through writing the essay, is able to reflect on these experiences - - his relationship with Dub, as well as his parents' divorce - - and realize that nothing is black and white.
Rats Saw God does an excellent job of portraying the complexities and realities of teenage life, especially the turmoil of first romance. Steve's descriptions of his first dates with Wanda, as well as his emotions when the relationship goes awry, are conveyed with intensity and clarity that readers will appreciate. By the end of the novel, Steve, who heads off to Washington state for college, has clearly grown into a more mature person, having been made stronger through his relationship with Dub and coming to terms with issues in his family. Perhaps the only distraction in the book is the frequent use of pop culture references from the mid-nineties (to bands like Pearl Jam, Goo Goo Dolls, celebrities like Cindy Crawford, etc.). With the exception of a moving passage about the effect of Kurt Cobain's death on the high school kids, which is movingly told, some of the pop culture references may not hold up over time, and may date the book a little. However, because its themes of struggle and growth - - as Steve develops from a shy sophomore to a wise college freshman - - are so universal, this novel should ultimately resonate with teens for years to come.