10th Grade: A Novel
by Joseph Weisberg is the runaway NY Times bestseller about — what else — the
10^th grade. It is a hilarious romp through this emotionally laden,
but otherwise eminently forgettable high school grade.

10th Gradeis set in Hutch
Falls, New Jersey sometime during the 1980s. Jeremy Reskin is a fifteen-year old
high school sophomore. He "has big plans for tenth grade — he wants to
make some friends and he wants to take a girl’s shirt off."(back cover)
Unfortunately for his plans the girl of Jeremy’s dreams is beautiful and
popular Renee Shopmaker, a recent import from Japan, who is his frequent
Spanish dialog partner. Thwarting his ability to make friends is his popularity
with the schools bohemian "goth chicks": weird Caroline (Zisko),
anorexic Gillian, and overweight Kath. In addition, Jeremy must contend with
his Romanian soccer coach Kurlyesku and bizarre assignments, i.e., making
Banana Maloosa (22 Green Bananas, 2 cups of salt, and 4 tablespoons of ground
African Fern Bark – yum). He does fit in two field trips to New York City, one
with his goth friends to the Halloween parade and another with his father to
visit Mo Levitsky’s Garment District shop (with a side venture to purchase a
few porn magazines). Somehow, Jeremy manages to
stumble through 10^th grade on his way to becoming a junior, but more
importantly will he succeed in accomplishing his goals?

10th Grade reminds the reader why
we try very hard to forget this horridly awkward age. The protagonist, Jeremy
Reskin, is a teenage everyman. He is not terribly bright, good looking, or
popular. His athletic skills are not note worthy. He is not very successful with
girl and his ability to earn friends seem limited to members of the school’s
sub-stratum of nobodies, losers, and dropouts. He is by most definitions, your
average awkward male teenager in the worst of all grades.

The novel reads like a tenth grade
boy’s journal. It is filled with poor spelling, bad grammar, run on sentences,
and an anachronistic use of letter and numbers for words. (U no what i mean?)
While this may prove to be annoying to some, for others, myself included, it
adds to the overall charm of the novel. What did become annoying and at times a
bit offensive were the constant references to and comparisons of T&As, but
then again what else does your average 15-year old horny male think about?

May I recommend pairing this novel
with Teen Angst? Naaah: A Quasi-Autobiography by Ned Vizzini. (also reviewed
here) Both books are a humorous send up of a boy’s experience of high
school. Both books are written in the style and vernacular of a teenage boy.
(Vizzini is a bit more literate.) Where the two novels differ, however, is the
point of origin of the authors. Weisberg is an adult male writing about his
teen years, while Vizzini is a 19-year old teenager writing about
his recent experiences. If you want to reminisce about the "way we
were" read Weisberg, but if you want to read about the "way we
are" read Vizzini.

Joseph Weisberg is an
editor of Slate Magazine. He was born and raised in Chicago. He wrote his first
short story, "The Mid-Life Crisis Exploits," when he was twelve. He
currently
lives in New York City. 10th Grade is his first novel.

10th
Grade is a winner of the 2003 Alex Award and was on the
bestsellers list for a long time. (It must have something going for it.) While
some may find it offensive, it does seem to reflect the interests and lingo of
sophomore boys. I think Vizzini is slightly better, but if sophomoric
high jinx are your thing, why not read them both.

© 2003 Su
Terry

Su
Terry: Education: B.A. in History from Sacred
Heart University, M.L.S. in Library Science from Southern Connecticut State
College, M.R.S. in Religious Studies/Pastoral Counseling from Fairfield
University, a M.Div. in Professional Ministry from New Brunswick Theological
Seminary, a Certificate in Spirituality/Spiritual Direction from Sacred Heart
University. She is a Licensed Minister of the United Church of Christ and an
Assistant Professor in Library Science at Dowling College, Long Island, NY. Interests
in Mental Health: She is interested in the interplay between psychology,
biology, and mysticism. Her current area of research is in the impact of
hormonal fluctuation in female Christian mystics.

Categories: Fiction