Everything Matters

After reading this, I'm still not sure whether I liked it or not. It still bothers me, and seems pointless, that Junior learns about the end of the world on the exact day he was born. To me, this is odd only because I have no memories of myself or anything until I was about three or four, but again, it is a book.

I think having Junior know when the end of the world is going to be is interesting because a lot of shows on the History channel, Discovery channel, etc discuss this because the Mayan people said the world would end December 21, 2012. I think that the idea of Junior knowing this shows readers what it is like to deal with this sort of pressure because he can relate to nobody on this level.

One aspect that I enjoyed, that I think is not as prevalent in other books, were how visible Junior's parents were. In most young adult books, the parents are in the background or are "bad." I thought it was interesting to see and learn about how Junior's dad sacrificed all that he did. Most parents in young adult fiction are not given much of a back story. Even when Junior's mom because an alcoholic, she is still made relevant in the book. From experience, I think that most authors would have had Junior saying/doing bad things because of the mother and would have all his problems blamed on her because she would be considered a "bad" parent. This book made it obvious that someone still cares enough to write about the characters parents because they are apart of every child/teens life. Parents help children grow, and that should always be known to children because most kids really look up to their parents and are a product of them.

Again, I cannot decide if I like this book because it was so depressing. I can read sad books, but this was hard to read. I read this while sitting outside in the sun, so I cannot imagine reading this in the dead of winter when it's cold, gray, and snowing.