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Tuesday, November 16, 2010

Gentlemen by Michael Northrop

It was the way it moved under the blankets, the way it shifted around. It seemed to have, I don't know, joints or something. I mean, furniture can have joints, like a lawn chair or whatever, but that was no frickin' lawn chair."
Mixer, Tommy, Bones, and Micheal (yes, it's spelled incorrectly. Blame his parents) are close friends. They're also not the type of people you mess with. Bones has been held back a year, and routinely beats up people for no apparent reason. Micheal's dad permanently damaged his, Micheal,'s face. Mixer gets in trouble for talking back to teachers. Tommy is... well, Tommy's nicer than the others, but still tough. Tommy, Mixer, and Micheal all have to go to another year of school. That's how they know Bones.
Everyone's scared of them.
Except for their English teacher. Their very weird English teacher. Who calls people like them "gentlemen" or the girls "ladies"?
And when Tommy mysteriously disappears one day after making trouble in math class (Darn that lisp of his), it looks suspiciously to Micheal, Bones, and Mixer, that their teacher knocked him off.
After all, what else could be in the bag?
As he goes along, Micheal learns what makes a friend, and what tears friends apart. He learns secrets about things he used to take for granted. He learns things aren't always as they seem.
First of all, was there a sale on commas? Second, that's a long way to go to say that the dude was broke and decided to duck his landlady. After an hour of that I needed a break and maybe an aspirin.
I got this book because, well, it has an interesting premise. An English teacher knocking off a student? A thing about friends? Mysterious circumstances? AWESOME! So I read it. And it was pretty good. Um... the ending is bizarre though. Just warning you. And there's swearing, violence, drinking, and smoking. So it's not the best role model book, either. But besides that, I really liked it. I'd give it about... three and a half stars.

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