Half My Facebook Friends Are Ferrets

July 7, 2014
Sixteen-year-old Josh Walker has several goals he’d like to accomplish before his approaching 17th birthday, including kissing a girl, getting a piercing, seeing his favorite Finnish death metal band live, and mastering Metallica’s “One” on guitar. Obstacles include his mother (who, as a result of ongoing “financial difficulties” since his father died, is always sticking Josh with odd jobs), Josh’s “on/off relationship” with his sister, his nerdy friends, and the fact that he spends most of his time in his bedroom with his ferret, Ozzy, writing heavy metal lyrics and dreaming about an electric guitar. Readers will feel as if they know Josh well through his daily cataloguing of his life in a journal; unfortunately, his entries get tedious fairly quickly, given that he has so little going on. It’s easy to sympathize with Josh’s frustrations, and his sarcastic, self-deprecating narration has its moments (“I am prostituting my soul for the Jackson,” he says of a restaurant gig. “I wish I could prostitute my body, but no one’ll take it”), but a lack of momentum makes for slow-going reading. Ages 14–up.

June 1, 2014

Gr 10 Up-Josh Walker wishes he could be in an amazing metal band, find a girl to kiss, and get his mom to ease up on her lecturing. Unfortunately, none of those ideas seem like realistic possibilities right now. He vents about all of these issues in a blank book his mother gave him for Christmas. He also relays stories about his after-school job, the time he spends with a local neighbor who may have more ties to his family than Josh suspects, and his numerous adventures with his misfit friends. Unfortunately, the promising concept of a young man finding his voice through journaling is wasted in this confusing, poorly structured novel. Josh's journal entries are frequently short, perhaps to appeal to reluctant readers, but this makes it hard for readers to connect with the narrative and the narrator. Though Buckle seems to be aiming for older readers, Josh's voice sounds much younger; for instance he only ever writes "f***" in his journal, a particularly discordant detail for a supposedly rebellious teen boy. The setting is also never made clear, though vague details hint at somewhere on the East Coast. This lack of specificity is a hallmark of the indistinctness that marks much of the text. Libraries looking to supplement collections with more funny, male-narrated titles will be better served looking elsewhere.-Angie Manfredi, Los Alamos County Library System, NM

Copyright 2014 School Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

June 15, 2014
Sixteen-year-old metal head Josh Walker whines his way through life.Seemingly told through writings in a leather-bound journal given to him by his mother, the book follows Josh as he strives to achieve several goals before his 17th birthday. These goals range from kissing a girl to owning a Randy Rhoads Flying V Jackson guitar. It's a shame that "gaining a larger sense of perspective" isn't on the list. Despite presenting a list of objectives, the actual narrative is limp and shapeless. Josh is infuriatingly self-involved, so much so that the first-person perspective thwarts reader engagement. Everyone else in his life is interesting and dynamic and has other things going on, but Josh's lack of concern for those around him makes it impossible for readers to glean anything beyond minor glimpses into a world with far more involving characters. Instead they get a novel filled with pointless teen grumblings and awkward sexual frustration. Most offensive is the novel's denouement, which grants this shallow teen's wishes for material things. Josh gets everything he wanted, and none of it is earned, just falling into his lap for no reason. Josh doesn't become a better son, brother or friend, which makes the entire enterprise feel pointless.An exercise in reading frustration. (Fiction. 12-16)

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