A Middle Schooler's Perspective

I recently found this book review.  It was written by a middle school boy.  Enjoy!

Monster by Walter Dean Myers


The novel Monster is a dull book with a flat plot and boring characters, and a very stereotypical dialogue. Overall I didn't like this book. When I first read the back, the teacher told me about the book and I thought we found a very good book to read, but I guess not.

Monster has a flat plot. I think this is due to the repetitive storyline. The author goes back into the past over and over again. Every day Steve Harmon goes to court and they say the same thing as the day before. After a while you start to figure out what they are going to say. I thought this would be a good book by what the teacher told me and by the way it sounded on the back, but I know that you can't judge a book by its cover. I felt like I was reading the same book one-hundred times! After a while it started to get real boring and I just wanted to put the book down. After a while I could say the line before I even read it because it said the same line three pages ago.

Secondly, the book has very dull characters. The author didn't describe the characters as much as I needed him to so that I can understand their background a little bit more. All the book really was to me is a bunch of talking and then it went on. I was hoping I could feel the characters more so that I could tell if they were guilty or not before I even reached when it told me. When I read the book, I wanted to be able to feel the characters, know what they are like, and what their families are like. I think that if the author would have explained the characters the book would have been longer and a lot more interesting than I thought.

I also caught a little distraction that I don't think that most people would have found. The dialogue was very stereotypical. Once again, it was a bunch of black males growing up in the hood. They have to talk slang. They have to be bad kids and have no respect or knowledge. I don't think much people would find that but I thought that it was a little wrong and the author should have written the book a little more different. I have always lived in the hood and I am a perfectly good kid and it isn't even really that bad.

I personally don't like this book because there were many things that I found wrong with it. I would not recommend this book to anyone, and I would not read this book again. In my opinion, I think this is the first book I have ever read that would be better as a movie because the settings and the dialogue. I hope you liked my book review, and I hope that you find a better book than this one.

:o)  This review just made me smile a little bit... Too cute.  Actually, I may have to read it just to see if he is right!  I know a few teachers read my blog... Have you or your students ever read this book?  What did you/they think?