King Dork

I don't read a whole lot of YA fiction -- well, I mean, I read a lot of Sweet Valley High, but that's just sort of my private passion -- but I read and thoroughly enjoyed King Dork by Frank Portman....so much so that I reviewed it this week in Las Vegas CityLife:

King Dork is far more than a simple lampooning of high school from the eye level of the aggrieved. Several mysteries weave through the novel, including a rather dark secret involving child pornography at the school Tom and Sam attend, and the ever mysterious death of Tom's police officer father. There's a bit of Encyclopedia Brown in Tom, provided Encyclopedia Brown periodically received blow jobs from clearly insane Catholic school girls, but what makes this novel ultimately successful is it doesn't shy away from the real emotions teenagers face. Where a novel like Rainbow Party sensationalized a myth, King Dork personifies a more varied, if difficult truth: High school can be a mine field and those that ultimately succeed outside its walls as adults were frequently the ones sitting in the corner, obsessively reading books and laughing at the absurdity of it all. It's not the goth kids parents should be concerned about -- it's the kids so well adjusted they feel the need to belittle them. If this is a just world, someone will call for King Dork to be banned, thus giving Frank Portman's novel the publicity it richly deserves.

Comments

[Tanya]

"High school can be a mine field and those that ultimately succeed outside its walls as adults were frequently the ones sitting in the corner, obsessively reading books and laughing at the absurdity of it all."

Oh good! I hope this means there's some hope for me (and fellow dorks) after all. :)

[Karen]

I read this novel on Michael Schaub's recommendation. Loved it (the Navy spy did, too). It's good it's getting more attention.

[mernitman]

Best book I read this year, and it even inspired me to buy Sweet's "Desolation Boulevard" (Dork's "greatest rock album ever made") and to actually regret (for about 10 seconds) not being in high school now, on account of man, we certainly didn't see THAT kind of b.j. action back in my day...