The Dark Side of NowherePersonally I did not like this book. Being an avid YA reader, I found it disappointing on various levels. I REALLY did want to love this book and give it at least a three star review, but I couldn't. Due to many factors, which I will list bellow.This Book Needs To Explain a Lot More Than It Did When it comes to books like this one, I love to see the plot twists and the reasonable explaining. This book however disappointed me when it came to both of these categories. The first few chapters were amazing, to be honest. It seemed to be going somewhere, but it didn't. The author never clearly explains why the main protagonist is different, and why any of the kids would actually listen to XXX. Truthfully,it felt like Shusterman was manipulating the story to his liking, without explaining or reasoning much.The Flat CharactersThis is a major pet peeve of mine when it comes to reviewing books in general. I found it particularly annoying that all of the characters were as flat as they could be. Even the main character seemed to have little to no personality or trait I seemed to enjoy. At times I almost had forgotten that the main character was actually male and not a female character. Jason isn't describe much and his friends are even flatter than him. Why does this book say it is for 12+This book feels as if it is meant for a certain sort of middle grade children. It is definitely not YA or appealing to anyone 12+ in my opinion. There is some explanation and reasoning for this, but I found it awfully misleading when I picked this up. You see, the reason why they rated this book the rating it has is due to the fact that it includes mild romance and training gloves and later on "real gloves". (A glove that can shoot 5 rounds of BB like bullets at once and than later on a more powerful glove) This leads to mild missuses of the glove, however it does not lead to any deaths from my knowledge. (A kid uses it to insure solitude, and another uses it to get an object that he wanted. I forgot what it was to be honest)What I Did LikeThe plot and the characters are definitely not my favorite when it came to this book. I did however love the cover, and did enjoy how short and sweet this story was. (Despite the fact that this is more out of the authors sake of convenience rather than the readers) I am a major fan of Shusterman, and still think this book will be a fantastic addition to my collection. Maybe I was spoiled by some of his later writings too much to enjoy this novel, but I still find it impossible to give this novel one star so..What I didn't like~How flat the plot and characters were~The writing style~The ending!!!!Maybe I'm the only one that didn't fall in love or dislike this book as much as others, but if you did like or agree with this post please do comment or like this review!
tThe Dark Side of Nowhere, by Neal Shusterman, is a surprising novel about the life of a seemingly ordinary young boy. As the story progresses, he learns that his abstractly normal life is not so normal after all… tThe story takes place in a small, unsuspecting town named Billington. Jason Jonathan Miller leads a frustratingly normal and boring life, until of series of strange events starts to occur in his hometown; starting with the death of one of his closest friends. His best friend Ethan died unexpectedly of a burst appendix; such a strange way to die. Things seem to settle down a little after Ethan’s death, until, the janitor at Jason’s high school starts to make strange appearances and even stranger comments. At Paula’s softball game, Jason is thrown into a fight, at his own fault, and ends up running to the bathroom by the baseball field. There, who else does he see but the janitor. The Janitor gives Jason a steel mesh glove inside a paper bag and tells him to meet him in Old Town Billington after school on Monday. When Jason goes exploring through Old Town Billington, the abandoned, run-down part of the Billington, his friend Paula and himself discover some strange findings. They see a picture in an old house that looks exactly like one of their classmates. In addition, Paula spotted the words “Help us” on the backside of a closet door. Sensing the dangerous and scary vibes the town gave off, Paula and Jason head back to their homes. Jason later begins training with the janitor and other kids on how to use the glove. It turns out, all the kids participating are the children of the alien race that came to earth years ago intending to invade and take over. The small group of aliens that came to earth first have waited for more alien ships to come so they can overpower all humans and finally, they have gotten signals from the ship anticipating their arrival. Jason, along with the rest of the kids, must work as soldiers in the coming war of man vs. alien. tAfter being content with reading a different book by this author, I decided that reading this particular book wouldn’t be such a bad idea, but I did not like this book at all. The whole plotline was cheesy and ridiculous. It was so unrealistic that it felt completely unrelatable and alien. It was an easy, unchallenging read that provided so needed thought process or intellectual ability to comprehend the vocabulary, storyline, characters, or grammatical stylings. The characters were dull and underdeveloped; I didn’t feel an attachment to anything in the book at all; especially the fate of the characters. In my opinion, good books should make you think and feel something, and quite honestly, this book did not meet those standards at all. I would not recommend this book to anyone.
What do You think about The Dark Side Of Nowhere (2002)?
This book is about a boy named Ethan dieing, and everybody said it was pendicitis. Later Jason and some others realized it wasn’t. Jason didn’t like his life because he thought it was too boring and he thought his parents were too nice because they never tell him hes in serious trouble. At Ethan’s wedding, Jason wondered why Ethan’s parents didn’t cry but his dad said it was shock. Later Jason learned Ethan hadn’t died at all. At a Little League game in Billington, Jason got in a fight with a boy because that boy was insulting the pitcher who was the girl that Jason liked. He got badly beat up.Then his school janitor, Mr. Grant, walked inside the restroom and gave Jason a glove that shot out BBs. Jason learned that the glove shot BBs by himself. He also told him to meet him by a barn in a place called Old Town.The next day, Paula, the pitcher that Jason liked, went to Jason’s house and told him he ruined her no-hitter yesterday. She was turning to leave but Jason wanted her to stay there so he decided to show her the glove Grant had given him even though Grant said not to show anyone the glove. I like this book because it reminds me of another story I I have read called "Cirque Du Freak". I recommend this book to younger crowds of people"teens".
—Gabriel Hall
If I were 13, I would give this book five stars. That's meant to be a compliment, as that is who it is written for. This book would have been the perfect escape for me when I was a teenager: turns out I'm really not who I think I am (and I never thought I was) and I'm not necessarily happy with who I really am (never really was) and that knowledge could be used to impress a girl in the end (I won't divulge all the daydreams I had as a kid, but they almost always ended with my oddities somehow really impressing the girls...). I must admit that the 13-year-old part of me really enjoyed this little escape.Then you get to dry, boring, intellectual side of me that really just felt like this story wrapped up too tight in the end. Thinking back on my childhood, this was not the book I needed because, at the time, what I needed to know was that there is no tight endings. Instead, there's life. I'm not sure if that's what Shusterman needed to do in this particular story, but if he had, the intellectual side of me might have given this book 5 stars.
—Joseph
I read The Dark Side of Nowhere because I heard that Neal Shusterman was a good author. This book fills in the category of ‘your own choice.’ I like this category because it allows you more freedom with your book choices.A character I found interesting was Jason because to me, he was likeable and was fun to read about. Jason’s thoughts and struggles were interesting to read about, and to some extent, understandable.A quote I liked was “because no matter what my reflection tells me – not matter what genes give rise to my form – I know exactly who and what I am.” I liked this quote because it showed Jason’s thoughts about his new self and it also can mean that who we are as a person is not tied to what we look like.Something I learnt from this novel is that being on the side of people like you is not necessarily good, but instead, being on the side of what you truly believe in is better. Just because people who are similar to you in a certain way believe in something does not mean that you have to. If something is wrong with their beliefs, then being on the popular side isn’t being on the right side.
—Quint
