Review Detail

Reader reviewed by graacen

Book Review: Boys, Girls and Other Hazardous Materials

Boys, Girls and Other Hazardous Materials by Rosalind Wiseman was a book that talked about the basic life of an ever day teenager in high school. With its problems it had solutions. The book was overall really good. Rosalind combined the ties of honesty, respect, love and peace into the friendship of Charlie and Sydney. Although Charlie and Sydney just met this year, Rosalind makes their friendship sound like theyve known each other for ever. She gives them that bond thats important for any student in high school to have with someone. My favorite thing about the book would have to be how everything seemed to be so real. The problems were realistic, the characters were made to seem like they were actual human beings, and the relationship that the characters had, seemed to be so real and thats what made it all the more fun to read.
In the book there were a few subjects that didnt make sense. One being the fact that the author jumped from trying to make a decision, to not wanting to make a decision, to making a decision, in one of the chapters. Im no author, but as a reader it got confusing. Going back and forth and trying to follow what the pro and cons were about what the decision was going to be for a few pages made no sense. But as for any issues that that author had, or was trying to make, there were only a few. There were some problems that were brought up between Charlie and Sydney- Like how they argued over Tyler asking Sydney to go to Homecoming with her. Or how Charlie and her other best friend Nidhi became best friends rather than enemies just by working in the school Prowler together. The overall issue of the book if you will, would only have to be how high school changes you as a person, not only physically, but mentally. High School is the time where you end up finding your self as a person, and as in the book its actually surprising to hear how many kids would go to hurting others just to be apart of a team and to have it be made the rest of their high school days. The issue with children doing things like this is the fact that they dont know who their really hurting until all the damage is done. Going back to the book and how the Lacrosse boys had gone to all the trouble to keeping what they were doing to themselves and others to later having the last person they thought to find out about their bonding sessions find out is actually surprising. Now-a-days young adults are doing anything and everything to be known as the cool cat on campus and its quite sad.
And as for the book, teenagers entering high school or leaving high school would find this book amazing. You can relate to a character by hardly knowing much about them. This book was one of those books that you just couldnt put down once you read the first couple of pages. It taught you to not only look inside the box but as well as outside of it