Cold Calls

By: Charles Benoit

Three teenagers get mysterious phone calls.  There is no phone number and no trace of the call.  The call requires that each Eric, Shelly, and Fatima bully a specific person in a specific way on a specific day.  They are all supposed to call each victim names, bump into them in the hallway, and finish it off by pouring mac and cheese onto the victim's head, video it, and post it on Youtube.  If Eric, Shelly, and Fatima don't do what the caller demands then the caller will reveal a big secret about each one of them to everyone they know.  At first, these high schoolers don't know each other, but they meet when they are all sent to the same bullying program.  For the remainder of the book Eric, Shelly, and Fatima work together to find out who the mysterious caller is and how to get the caller to stop.

I was surprised by this book.  To me, the plot seemed sort of dumb.  Why would I want to read a book about some teenagers that are getting blackmailed into bullying someone?  It really did not sound interesting.  That being said, that isn't exactly what the book is about.  Most of the book focuses on Eric, Shelly, and Fatima figuring out how to catch the caller and the backstory of each character.  I was also surprised by the depth of the characters.  They were surprisingly realistic.  The motives were also very fitting for each character.  The motives seemed to build the character, not just take from it.  Overall, this book was pretty good.  It did lack some excitement and was slow from time to time, but other than that, the book was interesting.  The one thing I found the book lacked was a realistic antagonist.  The motive behind the "cold calls" was underwhelming.  The ending of the book also seemed a little clipped and unclear.  However, what I found to be unclear I don't think was intentionally ambiguous.  I just thought the writing confusing at the end.  This book was like broccoli -- pretty tasty but could have been better.  It had a good flavor but not one I would call excellent.   This book was a 2.25

Everybody Sees the Ants

Lucky isn't that Lucky. He is relentlessly bullied and his parents are powerless to intervene and advocate for him because they are paralyzed by their dysfunctional marriage. A social studies assignment to design a survey and chart the results goes horribly wrong when Lucky decides to poll students about which method of suicide they would choose. Not a good idea. After a particularly brutal attack, Lucky's mom takes him away to visit family in Arizona, and give them both a break from the pressures of home. Three weeks lead to a lot of self-discovery, and a highly satisfactory conclusion.
A.S. King, author of the Printz Honor Book Please Ignore Vera Dietz, took a lot of risks with this novel. The ants serve as a comic Greek chorus and work well in providing a counter-balance to the bleakness of Lucky's life. The dream sequences in which Lucky tries to free his long lost grandfather from a Vietnamese prison camp are also effective, if a bit of a stretch at times. However, Dietz pulls it off.
In reflecting upon Everybody Sees the Ants, Going Bovine by Libba Bray comes to mind. Bray took similar risks, trying new ideas and breaking down the barriers between the real and the fantastic. It is a joy to see authors testing their skills and pushing boundaries and concepts.
As a food experience I would rate this as Lucky's favorite dinner. Yogurt marinated chicken with tomato and pineapple skewers on a bed of rice. Flavorful, unusual, and for someone open to risk. Yogurt marinated chicken isn't necessarily for everyone, but if you are willing to bite, you will find it absolutely delicious!