Sophomore Undercover by Ben Esch (Review by Bella Aire)

(For those who noticed: when my brain is tired, it makes mistakes. Apparently my exhausted mind thought Dixie + Nguyen = Nixie. I'm afraid I combine words by accident all too frequently in real life, and now it has crept into my writing. I apologize to the author, Ben Esch, for messing up the name.)

I approached this book with a good amount of optimism. No, girls like me probably weren’t the target audience here. This is a book about a guy written by a guy. But I have loved certain books written by guys. To name a few, I love LA Meyer’s fabulous Jacky Faber series (…though I have decided that LA Meyer either got some insider girl’s info from his wife or is a female mind reader. Wasn’t there a Mel Gibson movie about that?), James Patterson’s Maximum Ride Series, and all of John Green’s work. I have also held a fondness for certain books written from a male’s point of view: again, John Green’s work, JK Rowling’s Harry Potter series (a given), JRR Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings series (another given), and Susan Juby’s Getting the Girl (this book will appear again later in this review), among others. So I’m not all that biased when the guy/girl differential is presented to me. I realize this is not the case for all female readers. For those who are interested in broadening their perspectives by finding a guy writer/POV book to admire, the list above is highly recommended.

Sophomore Undercover is a good book. We have Dixie, an aspiring journalist. He discovers some suspicious drug-related activity going on with the bullying football team at his school and decides to pursue it as a story. Dixie is also one of those suspicious people who jumps to conclusions easily and doesn’t do things halfway, and this is what makes the story happen. The whole investigative male high school journalist card brought back memories of Susan Juby’s Getting the Girl. The main characters of Sophomore Undercover and Getting the Girl are actually very similar in temperament. And both books have terrific humor. But the tones are completely different; each is very distinct. Sophomore Under is original in its own way.

The plot for Sophomore Undercover is a simple one. The actual writing in the book is simple, as well, though not by any means poor. Occasionally we’ll find a crude reference here and there, but really. It’s a novel about a guy written by a guy. What on earth could readers expect? Here’s a small issue with this writing: the age group for Sophomore Undercover is 14 and up (I suspect the occasional crude references came into play for this rating), but the writing itself seems closer to 12 and up for a reader's range. Its audience will mainly be YA male readers, who, unfortunately, make up a smaller group into today’s reading world. This makes for a very small reading population. Still, I am hoping that books such as Sophomore Undercover will increase and encourage this market. There aren’t nearly enough male YA books out there (I’m not saying there aren’t any YA male books/readers, I’m just saying that any book in the YA section of a bookstore has roughly a 10:1 chance of being female rather than male.)

The strong point of Sophomore Undercover is the humor. It kicks in about a third of the way through, and it’s great. I love it when books make me laugh. It wasn’t that Dixie’s brand of humor is all that funny; it is definitely Dixie’s creator, Ben Esch, who deserves the credit here. Ben puts Dixie into all sorts of hilarious situations throughout the story which brightens Sophomore Undercover tremendously.

Sophomore Undercover’s most blatant flaw was its females. All the females in this story didn’t really seem all that convincing. I understand that the novel is supposed to be far fetched. But I definitely felt like the women were very mannish and un-feminine in this novel. Perhaps it is because meek Dixie brings out the aggressive side of girls. I am unsure.

What I am sure of, though, is that if Ben Esch focuses on his humor for his future writing, and gets a better female perspective, he will certainly create a hit. Yes, I’ve mentioned that his humor is great. But what is even more obvious in Sophomore Undercover is its potential.

Sophomore Undercover made a good, funny book. I challenge all female readers to step out of their comfort zone. Try out Sophomore Undercover or one of the other male POV/writers mentioned above. You might surprise yourself.

Always,
~bella aire~

Sophomore Undercover can be preordered (released on February 24, 2009) here:
http://www.amazon.com/Sophomore-Undercover-Ben-Esch/dp/1423113039/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1235086336&sr=8-1

Visit Ben Esch’s site here: http://www.benjaminesch.com/