Mark Goldblatt

In Queens, New York, in 1969, twelve-year-old Julian Twerski writes a journal for his English teacher in which he explores his friendships and how they are effected by girls, a new student who may be as fast as Julian, and especially an incident of bullying.

Twerp

Savindi Jinasena

Cover Gushing Worthiness: At first the cover of Twerp seemed random and bizarre because I didn't quite understand what a splattered egg was doing on the cover. After reading the book it makes perfect sense and the cover works well since it coincides with the title and content of the book.

Review: I got invited by Netgalley to read Twerp and I was quite excited about it. I didn't know what to expect from the book since it was the first time I had heard about it. I’m glad that it surprised me in the most pleasant ways.

Julian Twerski is forced to write about the incident that got him suspended. Instead of writing about what happened, Julian pens down the school year; from writing a letter to the new girl Julia who is his best friend’s crush, his encounter with Eduardo-the guy who can outrun Julian, the end of the year track meet and everything in between.

The first thing I have to say is about the language. It has a definite 1960′s New York feel to it and of course it makes perfect sense since the book takes place during 1969. The language also reminded me of S.E. Hinton’s The Outsiders and I think fans of the book will enjoy Twerp as well.

I liked the premise of this story a lot. I think it’s quite relevant to the issues that surround Elementary and High School students these days.Julian’s narration and descriptions of events were wonderful to read. I think my favourite part of the whole book was the landscape of 1960′s New York. It was interesting to read about what kids did for fun and what classes were like. I did think that there was some stereotyping going on in this book, but I suppose if you’re going to write a book about a child growing up in 1960′s New York I guess you do have to include elements of society that were present and prominent during the time. While I enjoyed this story I have to say that the pacing is incredibly slow. At times it did feel like nothing was ever happening, but then there were parts of the story that were really engaging. The ending was one of the things that took me by surprise. I didn't expect a change in one of the characters. I thought he would remain the same throughout the story. Not that the change of heart was a bad thing, but I guess because I had built up this dislike for him in the beginning, I was begrudgingly telling myself to forgive him and be happy that he saw the error of his ways.

Character wise I really liked Julian. I enjoyed reading about his observations and his rants about disliking Shakespeare. His observations regarding girls also made me laugh. I don’t think some of those attitudes have changed even now, but boys will be boys I suppose. He was such an honest character and I think his narration was probably what kept me reading. I found it really hard to like Julian’s best friend Lonnie because he came across as a bully. He said things that made you raise your eyebrows and think “you’re not even a teenager yet, so how can you talk like that?” Julia, the main female character,was quite the girl I must admit. Who knew girls at her age could string guys along which added a dash of humor to the book. As for the secondary characters; the ones in Julian’s social circle did come across as rather stereotypical. It reminded me of the characters from the movie Stand by Me. Except for Amelia;Julian’s older sister and Eduardo; Julia’s adopted brother none of the secondary characters were quite memorable, which was a shame.

While I appreciate the author addressing the subject of bullying during the 1960′s the book itself did not stand out for me. I read this book about two weeks ago and I’m only writing my review now. Throughout those two weeks there was nothing that made me remember this book except for some of the things Julian said.

Overall Twerp was an enjoyable read. It isn't the most memorable Middle Grade novel that I have read, but there were elements that I liked. I wouldn't discourage people from reading this book, although I do think readers would be better off borrowing a copy from the library first and then making a decision about purchasing it.

My Rating: 2.5/3 out of 5

Would I recommend it? Maybe

Twerp is published by Random House Books For Young Readers and will be available in bookstores starting today. This ARC was provided by Netgalley. Thank You Netgalley for this ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Cindy Lee

More of my reviews at Secrets of Lost Words.

Rating: A-

I didn't think I would like Twerp. I don't usually like a lot of MG books so I'm really surprised at how much I liked this book. Twerp is something more mature for the younger audience and I feel like this fully explained Julian's life and how he worked through his problems.

From the start, you knew that Julian was involved in a bullying issue. That was the reason why the teacher wanted him to write his story. This book reminded a lot of The Diary of a Wimpy Kid. That book was more of a light read while this one is more serious but also fun at the same time. I really enjoyed reading about Julian's adventures, problems, hopes and dreams.

The best part about this book are the characters. Julian was a great narrator and the author often incorporated Julian's feelings into what was happening. Every character (Lonnie, Educardo, Shlomo Shlomo) were distinct characters that had their own personality. Educardo was one of my favorites as he was Spanish and was humble even though he was good at a lot of things. Lonnie was something of his own. He was a devious kid and had a way of manipulating all his friends. I really connected with characters as I found a bit of my childhood (not as crazy as the story, of course) in bits and pieces of Julian's misadventures.

The situation for bullying wasn't included much throughout the book. We only got to know what happened at the end and what they did to resolve the problem. I feel like all kids were bullied at some point in their lives so it's a shame this book didn't focus more on that issue.

This book did take a while for me to get into but once I was enjoying myself, I kept turning the pages until I realized there was no more.

Overall, Twerp was a great MG books I thoroughly enjoyed. Julian's adventures, problems, hopes, and dreams was what made this book come alive and made this such a fun book to read.

P. S. Now I got what the cover means!

Twerp

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