Notes from the Midnight Driver by Jordan Sonnenblick
My rating: 4/5 cats
“okay, can you show me on the dolly where the book touched you?”
this wasn’t supposed to happen.
i mean, ugh—teen humor week?? i was expecting beavis and butthead, or the kind of stuff my high school boyfriend found funny, which is best left in the archives. i was only going to read one book from the list; the bare minimum, to give the old overachiever knob a rest, but i ended up reading three, and two of them were actually really good! but with each of them, i am pulling a caris (don’t tell his wife!!!)( <——- an example of what i thought teen humor would be like) and rating these as an objective reader. no, this book is not as good as within a budding grove, but it is a really good teen book with depth and heart and—yes—humor, which should probably be read by a wider audience. it is a perfect book for its exploration of both the sorrow and the release of death (this is only a spoiler if you don’t plan on reading the first page)
basic plot for everyone except jasmine—teenage boy, upset that his dad is banging his former third grade teacher (the boy’s, not the dad’s, you sicko) gets tanked, takes mom’s car, crashes, vomits, decapitates a lawn gnome, gets sent to do community service at a nursing home, where he is forced to babysit/entertain a grouchy old jewish man with emphysema. also family and friendship-confusion and some jazz guitar.
and i am not ashamed to admit that i totally got sideswiped by the big “reveal.” so—well played, sonnenblick! this round to you!
i swear, i didn’t cry, but some calloused bits of my heart got pumiced a little.
thanks for the rec, ariel!!
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