In 2011, with the kids and wife relatively independent, I found myself reading a lot more. I was running out of award-winning books to read. Rather than read any random book that caught my fancy, I decided to scour the library for some of the old classics. This was my first classic after a long time and I hope to make a habit of dipping into the past every now and then as I run out of contemporary entertainment.
I was pleasantly surprised to see that the book was rather simple to read, probably because it was narrated very authentically, by a 16 year old. Even though it was written almost half a century ago, you can identify with the youth and see that not much has changed in the attitudes of young kids. I can see how this book must have been very popular with parents who had teenager kids.
This book has numerous reviews on amazon and while flipping through them, I tried to look at the few "one star" reviews. Not surprisingly, these were from young adults who had no patience to read about a "loser" in their own age-group. One possibility is that they had many real-life examples around them, that they didn't need a book to remind them. Alternatively, they were more picky in comparing this with the realities surrounding them and felt that the book was dated and not relevant to them in any way.
I did enjoy reading the book as the character of Hudson is very well developed and you are eager to see what the next disaster in his life is going to be. There were times when the overuse of the words like "phony" get tiring, but the book does move along. It is only a couple hundred pages and is a breeze to read. I would probably be the millionth guy recommending this book, although, I would not recommend it to young adults as they really have nothing to learn from this.
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