Dead End in Norvelt

After reviewing a dark and sinister story like Incarceron, I decided to write a review for a rather humorous novel that I must say left me smiling many years after reading it.

The story behind this- I don't remember much, but I know that I lived in another town and was also quite fond of going to the library. I was in fifth grade at the time and that was the year we moved, so I would read for nearly four hours every Sunday because we had to drive two hours north to the place we'd be living at. This time, I had missed school for half a day just so we could look at houses. So, I laid in the back seat of our minivan and was reading this while everyone around me was talking about what is the best kind of house and so on.

Why I remembered it- Me and my friend were browsing through the school library and she saw this book. She liked it and we got it from the English teacher's classroom. Now she holds it against me that the reason I liked this book is because it involves an Indian pony and Japanese army weapons. Hey, I didn't even remember the pony right then, but I didn't even know what anime was at the time I read it.

Here's the cover-

The story starts with Jack, the hero, the main character, the protagonist, whatever you want to call him.

For Jack, this is a pretty uneventful summer in the small town of Norvelt. He just wants to get away from his fighting parents and his nose that spews blood whenever he gets startled or scared. So when Jack finds a shotgun in the basement and accidentally fires it because he didn't know it was loaded, he gets "grounded for life" by his parents.

So he gets sold out by his mom who thinks he should engage in community service and have a proper summer job to this crazy lady who needs him to write obituaries for her because she has arthritis and her fingers are too stiff. And Jack spends his days writing obituaries about the people who founded Norvelt. Little does he know that this will possibly be the best summer of his life.

My thoughts- (Do I even have to say that it contains spoilers anymore, I think you get the idea)

It was hilarious. In fact I still laugh at the part where Jack had to dress up as the grim reaper and sneak into an old lady's house because the person he was working for (sorry but I don't remember her name) wanted to know if the lady was dead or not. I like how Jack remarks that 'If she wasn't dead, I may have scared her into believing that she was dead'.

Even know after thinking about it for a while, I wonder where the Hell's Angels fit into all this. I know they were a small subdivision of this, but you see tattoo clad motorbike riders everywhere. What was so special about them? Although I do remember that a former Hell's Angel came once a week to Jack's house to take care of his horse, but that was it.

And I do recall that it was actually Jack's deranged uncle who fired the shot that broke the window. Or I may be thinking about something completely different. Honestly after reading so many books and then remembering one you read a long time ago, you get a little confused and mess up some of the details.

What's a little confusing about this book is that there is no clear problem or solution, but a series of adventures that add up to a main point. I guess the problem is that Jack's summer is really boring and that he wants to do something exciting before the school year starts. I can't blame him either because summer does get a little boring after a while. I mean, all I do is read, draw and play tennis all day long and then I read and draw all night long during the summer. Also what made me a little confused was that there was no clear antagonist and that Jack really has no enemies. He's just a normal kid. Nobody cares about the normal kids.

In short, this may be the funniest young adult book I have read to this day. It combines the wit of a thirteen year old kid with the sarcasm of adults to produce a crazy story filled with twists and turns that make you want to laugh and scream at the same time.