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alicebme's review against another edition
4.0
6.Personal Response: This reminds me a bit of my crew in high school, but I wish I’d been friends with other girls like this. They didn’t compete against each other, which would have been awesome for me.[return]7.Connections: Short series unit. I ‘d like to use this in my class in a bullying unit.
mrskatiefitz's review against another edition
4.0
Given that it was published in 1996, when I was turning 14, I suspect that I was just about two years too old to have read Revenge of the Snob Squad by Julie Anne Peters. That's really too bad, though, because it's exactly the kind of book I would have loved during my middle school years.
Jenny Solano, the main character, just doesn't fit in. At home, she's forced to deal with her mother's constant commentary about her weight, while her sister clearly starves herself. At school, she is always picked last in gym class, and she's routinely subjected to the obnoxious comments of Lydia Beals, who thinks she knows everything because her mother is a child psychologist.
When the gym teacher announces that the class will be running relay races in teams, Jenny is thrown into a group with Lydia, as well as Maxine McFarland and Prairie Cactus, two more misfits. Lydia is a klutz, Max is big and scary, and Prairie has a disability that causes her to walk with a limp. The girls really have nothing in common at first, but after the Neon Nikes, another team in the class headed up by the principal's daughter declare war on them, they dub themselves the Snob Squad and vow to get revenge.
The plot of this story is not really much of anything new. What makes this book unique is the character development and the quality of writing. Very few authors could name their character something as ridiculous as Prairie Cactus and still keep me invested in the story. Jenny's dark sense of humor and her cutting one-liners made me laugh, and her hatred of gym class and organized sports resonated with me very strongly. Perhaps because I was in ninth grade when this book was published, I also thought the details of school life were spot-on. Things happen in this book that happened to me and to people I knew.
As I mentioned last week, Nerd Girls by Alan Lawrence Sitomer, which comes out this July has a very similar plot line to this book, and though it's not as well-written, it does have a more contemporary feel. In the meantime, though, I'd definitely recommend this one to ages nine and up. There are also two sequels that I'll be reading and reviewing in the near future: Romance of the Snob Squad and A Snitch in the Snob Squad.
Jenny Solano, the main character, just doesn't fit in. At home, she's forced to deal with her mother's constant commentary about her weight, while her sister clearly starves herself. At school, she is always picked last in gym class, and she's routinely subjected to the obnoxious comments of Lydia Beals, who thinks she knows everything because her mother is a child psychologist.
When the gym teacher announces that the class will be running relay races in teams, Jenny is thrown into a group with Lydia, as well as Maxine McFarland and Prairie Cactus, two more misfits. Lydia is a klutz, Max is big and scary, and Prairie has a disability that causes her to walk with a limp. The girls really have nothing in common at first, but after the Neon Nikes, another team in the class headed up by the principal's daughter declare war on them, they dub themselves the Snob Squad and vow to get revenge.
The plot of this story is not really much of anything new. What makes this book unique is the character development and the quality of writing. Very few authors could name their character something as ridiculous as Prairie Cactus and still keep me invested in the story. Jenny's dark sense of humor and her cutting one-liners made me laugh, and her hatred of gym class and organized sports resonated with me very strongly. Perhaps because I was in ninth grade when this book was published, I also thought the details of school life were spot-on. Things happen in this book that happened to me and to people I knew.
As I mentioned last week, Nerd Girls by Alan Lawrence Sitomer, which comes out this July has a very similar plot line to this book, and though it's not as well-written, it does have a more contemporary feel. In the meantime, though, I'd definitely recommend this one to ages nine and up. There are also two sequels that I'll be reading and reviewing in the near future: Romance of the Snob Squad and A Snitch in the Snob Squad.
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