Review: The Field Guide to the North American Teenager

The Field Guide to the North American Teenager by Ben Philippe
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

The life cycle of this book:
I started it as an audio while renovating my house. I was HOWLING it was so funny -- but probably only to me: a High School Canadian teenager moves to Texas and is immediately overwhelmed by all things UT, Longhorn, and burnt orange. As a Sooner, I laugh at ALL things orange. Seriously the narrator was great and the dialogue was whip smart. But then I finished my renovation project and the audiobook I downloaded expired from the library, so I didn't finish. I was intrigued enough that after a 2 week hiatus I managed to check out the hard copy at the library. Once I started reading it, the characters weren't nearly so funny and in fact, they were snarky, mean and annoying. Now granted, they were teenagers, so what would one expect, right? But it wasn't doing anything for me. But by that time I was over half way done, so I persevered. I must say, the last third and the end of the book surprised me -- the teenage relationships took an unexpected turn, there was some racial injustice that was addressed by a parent, and it wasn't tied up in a neat bow, which was refreshing.

Overall -- book started as a 5, middle was a 1, end was a 4 -- I figured a 3 star rating was fair enough.

*Sensitive reader: no teenage sexapades, but plenty of Fbombs.

View all my reviews