A quirky Young Adult novel, Sleeping Freshmen Never Lie
Callie Feyen always has the best book suggestions hidden in her “My Week in Words” posts, especially when it comes to middle grade and YA fiction. I suppose teaching middle school English gives you an edge, huh?
Favorite Quotes:
(please forgive the lack of page numbers, as I read it on my iPad)
“That’s the weird thing about flea markets—books and tools seem to cost about the same amount per pound.”
“He’d broken his nose way back in first grade. It had healed kind of crooked, which made him look tough. Everyone figured he liked to fight. The truth is, he broke it falling off a rocking horse. But that didn’t matter. Once you had a reputation, good or bad, it stayed with you.”
“Would anything be left: of my memories of high school fifteen years from now? It was weird to realize I was going to forget things I hadn’t even experienced yet.”
“Which brings me to my first piece of advice: be careful with big words. People don’t like show-offs.”
“‘What is it? A girl?’ ‘How’d you know?’ He threw a shirt at my head. ‘It’s always a girl. So what’s the problem?'”
“The other team scored eleven times. Final score, 76 to 7. They should have had seventy-seven, but they missed one of the extra points. Not because of our defense. I think their kicker was getting tired.”
“I mean, I was a good reader, but that wasn’t like being a good ballplayer.”
“Don’t ever be afraid to ask for what you want. Nobody can read your mind. People always assume you want the same sort of things they want.”
“There’s something you need to know about the cafeteria. It’s a miniature map of everyone’s social standing.”
“Everyone around me looks so tired, I feel like I’m an extra in a low-budget zombie movie.”
“New Year’s is sort of like starting a new school. You can make all sorts of plans and promises about being better or changing your habits. Then you go on being yourself.”
“As much as I know he’s always within an inch of doing something dangerous, I get the funny feeling he has a set of rules he lives by. It’s just that they aren’t any rules I ever learned.”
“Unlike cars, lives don’t have a way to go in reverse.”
“So there I was, at the last social event of the year, dancing with a great girl. A girl who wasn’t afraid to be herself. And who wasn’t afraid to step away from the safety of her chosen identity. I doubt there were many other kids in the gym—or anywhere else, for that matter—who had the courage to do what [she] had done.”
Why this was a great story? Lubar’s narrator, Scott, is witty, smart, and a genuinely nice guy – even if he is 14 and still trying to figure out just who he is. The material isn’t anything earth-shattering: there’s bullies and girls and teens being teens as in most YA novels, but the way Lubar presents it in the first person diary of a freshman boy lets you follow the drama up close. And of course, by the end, all is well and wonderful and you smile as you lay the book down for the last time.
What could have made it better? At times, Scott seems too self-aware, too smart for a high school boy, let alone a freshman. And maybe this is also the book’s magic: that one young kid is just enough different that he does have some wisdom to pass onto the rest of us – even at 14.
So… have you read Sleeping Freshmen Never Lie
I loved this book, and I agree with your comment about him being too self aware at time. My students actually got annoyed with Scott with during the book. But I love that it’s funny and serious. We actually took a look at how Lubar did that. He pillows the serious between two funny parts. We discussed why that was, and decided that it’s because life isn’t JUST sad, or JUST funny. There always seems to be light in the dark places and vice versa.
I’m glad to hear you liked it. I’m dying to learn what you think of We Were Liars. It was a little off for me, and I can’t quite put my finger on it.
A freshman boy’s diary sounds quite interesting. I don’t think I’ve seen anything like that from the male perspective.
Right? It was kind of neat to see the way he thought – not something I have experience with!
Your reviews always make me swoon. Your approach to reading is just, beautiful, in it’s own right and so, yes.
I love your assessment that the main character’s own maturity seems to be troublesome, but it also beautifully inspiring to us as the readers and, well, that’s the point of reading, right? :)
I agree! We read to be inspired and wooed and all these wonderful, not-quite-real things. It’s supposed to be un-possible and yet possible at the same time. :)
I love reading YA once in awhile, and this one has definitely been on my radar! It sounds like an interesting story. I don’t think I’ve read many YA novels from a male’s perspective! I like the idea of it.
Ex-Old Trafford heroes such as Bryan Robson, Nemanja Vidic, Dwight Yorke and Andy Cole are among those who have similar positions.