2 stars

This book was really difficult for me to get into. As a kid, I remember a lot of my friends reading it. As an adult, I still didn’t really know what it was about having never read it in school, so when I saw it in the Little Free Lending Library, I picked it up for a quick read.

Mostly, the book was just sad. There is no doubt the reader will fall in love with Zinkoff’s character, but you just feel bad for him the whole time. He is such a sweetheart, but nothing really goes his way. He is wonderful and has good intentions. He accepts everything that happens to him and is such a champ about everything that you just want everything to work out for him. And when something doesn’t, you just die a little bit inside. It’s like that repetitively. That’s basically the summation of the book: Zinkoff’s tries and fails over and over and over again.

The ending was a bit of a disappointment as well. I don’t really feel like anything happened. Through the whole book, you are just waiting for Zinkoff’s big moment, and while something occurs that maybe makes things a little bit better maybe hopefully possibly, there isn’t a big moment or lesson. At least none that I picked up.

I couldn’t really figure out what the moral was supposed to be. Looking at the cover, I assumed it was about someone who was bullied and then proved the bullies wrong or the bullies got in trouble or the kid is finally accepted at the end, but none of those things really happen, at least not in a big way. The ending is very subtle and not very satisfying.

This book is just sad and kind of depressing. As a adult I didn’t enjoy it. I am already depressed about so many things, I didn’t need a fictional child to feel bad for as well, especially one that you continue to pity all the way to the end.

Okay read, but apparently I just didn’t “get” it. A little to subtle for my taste.