Review (25): Narrative Loserdom

Narrative Loserdom

by Ryan Collins

Series: Narrative Loserdom, Journal 1

Other Reviewed Titles: None

Release Date: December 1, 2011

Publisher: CreateSpace

Pages: 190

Source: ARC

Challenge: None

Justin Taggart doesn’t know anything (about being a loser). He likes girls and plays sports and has some friends. Unfortunately his fear of rejection outweighs his ability to deal with these well. Mostly there’s Sterling, the girl of his dreams who knows how to stop his heart by not knowing hie likes her. Another thing is trying to get money with Adam, who’s rich anyways so it’s more about hanging out. As for Justin, he makes ends meet by mowing people’s yards with Adam, and sometimes by breaking into vending machines and selling late-night cable programming to peers (also with Adam). But it’s not like he doesn’t feel bad about it since Jesus died for his sins. School is pretty terrible with all the work and practice, but there are a few people there worth mentioning. Anyone who picks up his journal will be in for something if they feel like getting through a lot of grammar and spelling problems. They’ll probably end up seeing that they shouldn’t have looked at it anyway, because this is someone’s private anthem of girls, grass, and loserdom.

________________________________________________________________________

Plot: There wasn’t much of a plot, mostly because this is the journal of a rambling, 16 year old boy named Justin Taggart. Each journal entry is like a little story about his day or something that happened to him or something that frustrated him. He talks about a lot of different things like girls (1 in particular), his best friend Adam, his various “jobs”, high school and football practice. Some entries are really interesting, others are kind of boring, and then some had me going “WHAT? Why would you do that?!” and then laughing. 

Characters: Because the chapters are all set as journal entries it is very easy to get to know Justin. This book is written by him, not about him so we really get to see into his head. He pretty much just writes down whatever pops up. At points he was slightly too obsessed with Sterling, but in a funny way. And then there’s his best friend, Adam. By the end of the book I still couldn’t really figure out their friendship. They were best friends, but it almost felt like they didn’t even really like each other that much which was strange. Doesn’t that defeat the purpose of “best friends”? The characters were all pretty relatable, but would have been more so if I were a teenage boy I’m sure. 

Cover:  The cover is a little too plain and doesn’t really go with the whole journal/diary theme of the book.

Overall Impression: Probably would have been more enjoyable if I were a boy and knew what they were talking about half the time, but still a nice read!

Rating: * * *

Thank you to the author for sending me the copy for review!