![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
quippeThe Blurb On The Back:
I've never minded that my name's Barry Loser because my coolness has always cancelled it out, but ever since Darren Darrenofski joined school with his horrible little crocodile face he's been completely ruining my life about it. "I Am Not A Loser" is the first of three notebooks belonging to Barry Loser. Follow Barry as he tries throw off his loserness, take revenge on the terrible Fronkle-burping Darren Darrenofski and finally become a winner.
Barry Loser knows that his inner-coolness cancels out the naffness of his name but his position in his school’s cool crowd is threatened by the arrival of Darren Darrenofski – ringpull throwing ninja, Fronkle-drinking fan and all around pain. Darren likes to sing ‘Barry Loser is a loser’ to the tune of ‘Happy Birthday’ and he always manages to be around when Barry is in an embarrassing situation.
Barry’s determined to get back at Darren and prove once and for all that he’s not a loser. To do so, he must enlist his best friend, Bunky and learn from his favourite cartoon character, Future Ratboy …
Jim Smith’s book (the first in a trilogy) is an amusing-enough story with some great illustrations that’s likely to appeal to fans of the WIMPY KID books but it didn’t have enough of a heart for me and I found the characters to all be equally unlikeable.
Barry Loser is an odd, geeky character, obsessed with the Future Ratboy cartoon. I liked the fact that he and his best friend Bunky prefer performing skits for their schoolmates (and I particularly liked Vending Machine Mum, which will strike a chord with many real mums out there) than playing sport and I also liked his closeness to his grandmother (who was easily my favourite character). However I couldn’t help but feel that this was something to be laughed at as “loser” behaviour than a fun activity. Similarly Barry and Bunky do some pretty unpleasant things, the worst of which is tormenting a woman who lives near by for no good reason. The rivalry between Darren and Barry is well drawn and the pettiness highly believable and so too is the way that Barry and Bunky occasionally turn on each other and bicker.
The drawings are a lot of fun and the story unfolds at a decent pace. Ultimately though, there was just something missing from this for me – there doesn’t seem to be much of a heart to it and certainly no one I could really root for.
As a result, although this book is perfectly okay, I’m not sure that I’ll be reading on.
The Verdict:
Jim Smith’s book (the first in a trilogy) is an amusing-enough story with some great illustrations that’s likely to appeal to fans of the WIMPY KID books but it didn’t have enough of a heart for me and I found the characters to all be equally unlikeable. The drawings are a lot of fun and the story unfolds at a decent pace. Ultimately though, there was just something missing from this for me and I’m not sure that I’ll be reading on.
Thanks to Starbucks for the free copy of this book.
I've never minded that my name's Barry Loser because my coolness has always cancelled it out, but ever since Darren Darrenofski joined school with his horrible little crocodile face he's been completely ruining my life about it. "I Am Not A Loser" is the first of three notebooks belonging to Barry Loser. Follow Barry as he tries throw off his loserness, take revenge on the terrible Fronkle-burping Darren Darrenofski and finally become a winner.
Barry Loser knows that his inner-coolness cancels out the naffness of his name but his position in his school’s cool crowd is threatened by the arrival of Darren Darrenofski – ringpull throwing ninja, Fronkle-drinking fan and all around pain. Darren likes to sing ‘Barry Loser is a loser’ to the tune of ‘Happy Birthday’ and he always manages to be around when Barry is in an embarrassing situation.
Barry’s determined to get back at Darren and prove once and for all that he’s not a loser. To do so, he must enlist his best friend, Bunky and learn from his favourite cartoon character, Future Ratboy …
Jim Smith’s book (the first in a trilogy) is an amusing-enough story with some great illustrations that’s likely to appeal to fans of the WIMPY KID books but it didn’t have enough of a heart for me and I found the characters to all be equally unlikeable.
Barry Loser is an odd, geeky character, obsessed with the Future Ratboy cartoon. I liked the fact that he and his best friend Bunky prefer performing skits for their schoolmates (and I particularly liked Vending Machine Mum, which will strike a chord with many real mums out there) than playing sport and I also liked his closeness to his grandmother (who was easily my favourite character). However I couldn’t help but feel that this was something to be laughed at as “loser” behaviour than a fun activity. Similarly Barry and Bunky do some pretty unpleasant things, the worst of which is tormenting a woman who lives near by for no good reason. The rivalry between Darren and Barry is well drawn and the pettiness highly believable and so too is the way that Barry and Bunky occasionally turn on each other and bicker.
The drawings are a lot of fun and the story unfolds at a decent pace. Ultimately though, there was just something missing from this for me – there doesn’t seem to be much of a heart to it and certainly no one I could really root for.
As a result, although this book is perfectly okay, I’m not sure that I’ll be reading on.
The Verdict:
Jim Smith’s book (the first in a trilogy) is an amusing-enough story with some great illustrations that’s likely to appeal to fans of the WIMPY KID books but it didn’t have enough of a heart for me and I found the characters to all be equally unlikeable. The drawings are a lot of fun and the story unfolds at a decent pace. Ultimately though, there was just something missing from this for me and I’m not sure that I’ll be reading on.
Thanks to Starbucks for the free copy of this book.
