Half My Facebook Friends are Ferrets

Gr 10 Up—Josh Walker wishes he could be in an amazing metal band, find a girl to kiss, and get his mom to ease up on her lecturing. Unfortunately, none of those ideas seem like realistic possibilities right now. He vents about all of these issues in a blank book his mother gave him for Christmas. He also relays stories about his after-school job, the time he spends with a local neighbor who may have more ties to his family than Josh suspects, and his numerous adventures with his misfit friends. Unfortunately, the promising concept of a young man finding his voice through journaling is wasted in this confusing, poorly structured novel. Josh's journal entries are frequently short, perhaps to appeal to reluctant readers, but this makes it hard for readers to connect with the narrative and the narrator. Though Buckle seems to be aiming for older readers, Josh's voice sounds much younger; for instance he only ever writes "f***" in his journal, a particularly discordant detail for a supposedly rebellious teen boy. The setting is also never made clear, though vague details hint at somewhere on the East Coast. This lack of specificity is a hallmark of the indistinctness that marks much of the text. Libraries looking to supplement collections with more funny, male-narrated titles will be better served looking elsewhere.—Angie Manfredi, Los Alamos County Library System, NM