Language: R (311 swears, 112 “f”); Mature Content: PG13; Violence: PG13
BUYING ADVISORY: HS - OPTIONAL
AUDIENCE APPEAL: SOME
The Bad Thing that happened changed everything about Joel’s life and made him very familiar with mental hospitals. His therapist thinks that things are going to be better now, and Joel’s newest prescription is to get a job. Joel (17yo) is thrilled to get to pass as a normal kid working at ROYO Video with other normal kids his age. But being normal isn’t at all what Joel thought it was.
Tragedy strikes and we all have to deal with what comes after. Joel’s story is about hope that we can climb up from rock bottom and that we can help each other out—while The Bad Thing in your life might be different from The Bad Thing in my life, all of our feelings about our respective Bad Things are valid. And all of that makes Joel’s story heavy but also good. Joel is the narrator and sometimes breaks the fourth wall, and some parts are laugh out loud funny, and all of that is mixed in with the hard parts. Which is how life is too.
Joel is White, Nichole is described as “pale,” Poppins is described as “tanning-bed tan,” The Godfather is Asian, and Maverick is Puerto Rican. There are also a couple of LGBT characters, but identifying them would be spoilers. The mature content rating is for alcohol use, discussions of eating disorders, kissing, innuendo, partial nudity, and mentions of drugs, abortions, condoms, prostitution, pornography, incest, and sex. The violence rating is for mild assault, mentions of blood and other bodily fluids and murder, and for suicide.
Reviewer: Carolina Johnson
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