DEAD END IN NORVELT by Jack Gantos

So before I talk about the books, I will just say that the only thing I had read by Jack Gantos previous to the pathetic photobombing you see in the picture was A HOLE IN MY LIFE which was a very bleak look at the time Gantos spent in the pokey after a drug smuggling conviction when he was 19 or 20. It is a great book, but it in no way prepared me for how hilarious I found him to be as a speaker at the MSLA convention two years ago.

Well, I expected to fall in love with DEAD END in no time. It had nostalgia, mischief and Eleanor Roosevelt - what's not to love? But it took me some time to get really into it.

However, but the end I had come around. I will say that I couldn't stand his parents. They were annoying at best, mean at worst. Of course Jack was kind of a pain so I could see their issues. I loved the character of Miss Volker who soaks her hands in wax, performs questionable medical experiments on Jack's nose and keeps track of the town's dead as the medical examiner and obituary writer. She is unequivocally a hoot. This was a slow starter for me, but I ended up smiling through.