Review Detail

Reader reviewed by Brenda

Young Stewart and his friends are at the top at their school. But the new kid, Rob takes them to new levels.
This is the story of what happens when Rob decides to take the class nerd, Simon Glass, and remake him into a popular kid using master manipulation techniques.

This book is a masterpiece of pacing, so much so that I'm going to use it to demonstrate pacing to my students. In most YA novels pacing is done by a series of mini cliffhangers at the end of each chapter. In this book, the pacing and interest is attained by quotes from the future by minor and major characters at the beginning of each chapter. The quotes are true to the character but don't reveal the whole story. We know we're moving towards an incident, but we're not really sure exactly what the incident is. As the novel goes on, the quotes reveal more and more.

I wouldn't say the book is 100% successful, I don't really buy one character's actions at the end, and that's a fault in character development. But overall, well worth reading.