10th Grade

November 19, 2001
Weisberg touches plenty of familiar bases in this pedestrian debut novel, a coming-of-age affair that tracks protagonist Jeremy Reskin's second year of high school in the vanilla New Jersey suburb of Hurst Falls. Jeremy is a bright, reasonably popular and athletic adolescent who plays soccer, gets decent grades and has an ordinary family life with two sisters, a penny-pinching but well-meaning lawyer father and housewife mom. The plot weaves around the arrival of a sexy new classmate, Renee Shopmaker, who quickly touches Jeremy's heart after she becomes his dialogue partner in Spanish class. But it takes the entire narrative for Jeremy even to consider the possibility of seriously dating Renee, something he muses about during their final conversation after each winds up with a different date at the prom. In between, Jeremy spends his time dealing with the semiromantic friendship of a serious, rather melodramatic girl named Gillian until their potential relationship peters out just before the prom. Weisberg captures the essence of adolescent stream-of-consciousness in Jeremy's narration, and he sensitively presents the usual array of coming-of-age scenes, including Jeremy's sexual initiation, a bonding trip to New York with his dad, his exploits with the soccer team and his first foray into the world of drugs and alcohol. But the absence of any romantic developments between Jeremy and Renee makes the ordinary scenes seem all the more bland; the result is a decent novel of character with little to distinguish it from the raft of genre fodder. Weisberg is a solid storyteller who knows his way around his characters, but he'll need some stronger plot lines to build on this debut novel.

September 1, 2001
This may be Weisberg's first novel, but he's got connections and maybe the right genes: brother Jacob (In Defense of Government) is also a Random author. Here, protagonist Jeremy navigates the ever-changing alliances of tenth grade.

Copyright 2002 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

January 1, 2002
This first novel is the journal of Jeremy Reskin, a tenth-grader with atrocious grammar who does not believe in the utility of commas and will stretch sentences across many lines because his writing teacher has told him to express himself. If the plot seems shticky, the book is in fact quite charming and proves surprisingly readable. Without commas (and often without apostrophes), Weisberg admirably captures the inarticulate voice of a suburban tenth-grader.Jeremy plays soccer but hangs out with a foursome who eat outside and smoke cigarettes and, occasionally, pot. Some readers may be frustrated by the meandering plot, and even those who fondly remember tenth grade might wish to be subjected to slightly less ogling of the female form; but Weisberg paints a picture that is horribly and wonderfully accurate. Whether Jeremy is shopping with his sister at the Limited or having amusingly brief dialogues in Spanish with the Love of His Life, Renee, this is a difficult, painful, and painfully funny novel. And just like tenth grade.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2002, American Library Association.)