Boys, Girls and Other Hazardous Materials

I enjoed when this book when I read it but it wasnt that memorable. I dont remeber to much.

Charlie is the main character of the book, who faces more challenges than she’s expected. Being a freshman in Harmony Falls High School isn’t simple, not to mention all the dramas she’s been trying to avoid. Sometimes I feel sorry for Charlie and wish she would have gone through high school without big drops of rain falling on a window. I mean, yeah, she meets new people and makes new friends, but what makes it worst is that she can’t escape from her past. It will always be right in front of her no matter which direction she goes. I like Charlie a lot, and the best thing I like about her is she never gives up trying, even though her past keeps coming back to her. She’s the kind of person I know I would be happy to make friends with.

Will is the character at first I thought he’s nobody, but he kind of grows on me. He’s Charlie’s old best friend, and they’ve known each other for a long time. After he comes back into Charlie’s life, things start to move around a little. What surprises me is that Will and Charlie end up liking each other, and I’m like Oh My Word!!! I’m glad I’ve gotten a chance to know Will better throughout the book.

Boys, Girls and Other Hazardous Materials reminds me a lot of high school—good times, bad times, and most of all, freshman year. High school is you either like or you don’t. I’ve always liked high school—drama, homecoming, prom, and friends. I had tons of good times, and I liked being a freshman, well, at least I used to think that. It was one of those unforgettable years filled with excitements, adventures, and new discoveries. Boys, Girls and Other Hazardous Materials is definitely the kind of book that brings back my high school memories. I just love every single moment of the story!

Reader reviewed by Lia

Charlie is both nervous and excited to start 9th grade at Harmony Falls away from her supposed best friends. She is ready to start over and make some new friends. Charlie makes friends easily enough and even lands a piece in the school newspaper. But when she learns questionable stuff about the school's beloved lacrosse team, Charlie has make a decision: will she stand-by or stand-up.

This book was a nice quick read that I finished in one sitting. It had light romance, lots of BFF bonding moments and doing what's right. The writing was very simple and easy to get in to. The characterization was done very well of the main character. All her emotions and thoughts felt realistic when she was debating about what to. It was a fast, enjoyable read.

Reader reviewed by Curren

Boys, Girls & other Hazardous Materials: by Rosalind Wiseman tells the story of Charlie Healy, a freshman in high school.  I had to read this book as an assignment.  It details Charlies (short for Charlotte) difficult journey of trying to fit in, make friends and figure out who she is.  Charlie switches to a new private school, Harmony Falls, in order to avoid her former enemies, Lauren & Ally.  She does so because those were the two girls who made her middle school experience miserable.  The author follows her journey as Charlie makes a new friend, Syndey, and reunites with her old friend Will.  Charlie and Will were friends since they were little kids and the book goes back and forth from their friendship to their relationship as more than friends.  Will is a lacrosse player and is involved in a bad incident that went too far.  Charlie knows about the incident and has to make some tough decisions about how to handle it.

I think Rosalind Wiseman does a good job describing the struggles that teens go through today.  The incidents in her book are very realistic and very much like real events happen in real life. For instance, many people have had to choose between doing what is right or living with regret for the rest of their life.  Coming from a teenage boy I could not really relate to a lot of the struggles faced by the girls in this book.  I feel that this would be a very good book for teenage girls.  However, it doesnt exactly hook me into the story as a guy.  This book was pretty good because it is a lot like teen life because there is a time in ones life where a person must choose between their friends and what is right.  Even though guys and girls go through the same struggles, the way we approach them is very much different.  Therefore, this book was kind of hard for me to read.

I would suggest this book for girls of teenage years but not for adults or boys.  I say this because the events in this book relate to the struggles of a teenage girl and the people around her.  As a guy, I didnt exactly want to read it all day.  I would recommend this book to any girl who has friend, boy, and family drama in their life.  Therefore, I would recommend this book to every teenage girl on earth.  

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

Reader reviewed by dejohnruffin

Boys, Girls, and other Hazardous Materials



In Rosalind Wisemans novel, Boys, Girls, and other Hazardous Materials, Charlie Healey faces adversity at her new high school. Her middle school life was bad, and it did not leave her with any good memories, because mean girls were everywhere. Her new high school, Harmony Falls, was supposed to be her chance to start over. She thought it would be a good idea to join the newspaper staff, so she did. She actually started making some real friends, like Sydney and Nidha. It was exciting and nerve-wracking, and she didnt know what new people she would meet or run into. She had hope for her future to be drama-free until she runs into her ex-best friend, Will. Will had moved away two summers ago, and now hes back with a new group of questionable friends that basically run the school. Later on in the story, Charlie witnesses Will hurt an innocent delivery man as part of a hazing prank. All Charlie wanted to do was have a drama-free freshman year, but she couldnt escape the drama. Her secret feelings for Will stop her from telling him not to haze the delivery guy. She must make the hard decision of making this come between their friendships or protect their friendship by keeping his actions a secret. But Will cant be stopped because he wants to earn his loyalty with the upperclassmen. During the story, Charlie learns that both sexes are capable of doing bad things, but at the same time, doing good things.

I liked the book, because Rosalind Wiseman chose a topic that people could relate to. Some of the characters were funny, like Nidhi, Sydney, and Michael. I also like how Charlie chose to do the right thing, even though she had strong feelings for Will.

At the same time, I thought it was a little unrealistic. I wish I could have read more about Sydney and Nidha because they were funny, unique, and loyal to Charlie. I disliked some parts, because Charlie is a typical, used-to-be-a-follower-now-is-trying-to-be-a-wannabe-leader. I disliked how the story sort of drags itself and the action doesnt start until towards the end of the story. There were very much predictable parts in the story but Rosalind knows how to throw curve balls in when the plot is starting to slow. This book has a unique portray of high school because it tells you that there are some adults you cant trust but there are also ones that are wise and you should listen to them. Thats the major message I got from this book. The helpful adults in this story play a big role to because they give Charlie some advice and help her get over her conflict if she should tell on will for hazing the mailman and they teach Will to hang around the right people.

This book has a lot of pros and cons but the pros outweigh the cons. Charlie obviously learns her lesson that doing that doing the right thing is better than doing nothing at all. Will learns to hang with the right people next time. Bye the end of the story, Charlie doesnt know who to trust but everything gets resolved and everyone is happy except the bad guys. Overall I do enjoy this story and would recommend it to you.

Reader reviewed by Courtney Garcia

The book I read for my outside read assignment was Boys, Girls, and Other Hazardous Materials by Rosalind Wiseman. This story contains romance, drama, and also comedy. The events in this story can relate to most teenage girls and is really easy to comprehend and enjoy. This story is about a girl named Charlotte also goes by Charlie, who moves to a new private school, Harmony Falls High School. As she goes to the school, she discovers her old best friend Will is also there. The main character Charlie becomes really good friends with Will again and they begin to think of each other as more than friends. Charlies new best friend in the story is Sydney who is a really sweet girl and helps Charlie go through her struggles throughout the story. Charlie is part of the newspaper committee and Will is a varsity lacrosse player. This story contains your average teenage girl drama with the main character. However, the main conflict throughout the story is a huge mistake dealing with Will getting hazed by the seniors on his lacrosse team, but they have it taken too far. Charlie is left to chose the right decision to tell the coach about the hazing or leave it for Will to handle. The storys main conflict deals with this and Charlie is stuck in a terrible situation of not knowing how to handle it.

Reader reviewed by Ruthie