King Dork is a book that my boss recommended, he said it was the best YA novel he’d ever read. I agree that it’s funny, original, and pretty entertaining. It suffers a little from Juno syndrome; Tom Henderson, the main character, is almost unbelievably smart and witty for a fourteen-year-old. But I do remember kids in high school who had an encyclopedic memory for pop culture (I was one of them, long long ago), and that kept Tom from being too unreal for me. However, if you don’t have an encyclopedic knowledge of modern music history (like me), you’ll just have to roll with the references and trust that they’re funny and relevant. Or, you can look them up! As a librarian, that’s what I should tell you to do.
Archive: May 27, 2008