Thursday, March 22, 2012

I Love You, Beth Cooper

I Love You, Beth Cooper
written by Larry Doyle

 

While this book had its moments of excessive and unnecessary crudeness, I loved the deadpan narrative technique employed.  It isn't often that I praise a book for including details, but mentions of specific songs and other details in this book worked, and worked well, adding only to its realism and wit.  This is one of the rare instances where details add to the plot rather than detract from the storytelling by serving as pointless, painful-to-sift-through filler.  Halfway through, the book seems to switch course and just become a coming of age novel involving dorky boys at parties with alcohol (Did people seriously do that in high school?  Was I just a severely sheltered child?) and I was no longer interested.  It was a better story before teen partying became the central focus, when it was a realistic story about high school rather than a fantasy version of what high school should be, filled with unnecessary drama and drunkenness.   I think I would have preferred a story that served more as a prequel that led up to the titular event, rather than its aftermath. 

 I got this book from...:BookMooch