Mikali 77

This book is terrible and has barely any overarching plot. It's just random stuff happening to boring underdeveloped characters. First, the title is completely misleading. 'The Wednesday Wars' as a title is referring to the time when the main character has to spend his Wednesdays alone at school with Mrs. Baker, and the shenanigans he gets caught up in. This part of the story is only important for three chapters and it is almost never brought up again. Not to mention, if your going to call your book 'The Wednesday Wars' you better have something exciting to justify the "wars" part of it. But this book instead is boring, and it's extremely anti - climactic. The biggest problem though is the characters. Other than Mrs. Baker, they are all forgettable and cliche. The worst example of this is the rediculously named main character Holling Hoodhood. Somehow Garry Schmidt did what no other author could of done with this character: he wrote a first person book and STILL MADE THE CHARACTER boring. He has barely any personality and is just insufferable. It's so bad that we never even get a physical description of the character. Another problem is how the story is structured. Every month is a new chapter. This would normally be fine, if not a million things happen in every month. Because of this it felt clunky and disorganized. There are a thousands, and I'm not joking when I say THOUSANDS of other problems with this book. Weather this be when the author tries to shove Shakespeare down the readers throats. I say that as a person who likes Shakespeare, but the message of Holling liking Shakespeare so you will like it too just seems so forced and cringey. There is also a weird unnecessary long 7 page section devoted to Holling reciting old curses. There is also a section where Holling's dad's competitor architect gives back construction plans just because Holling showed up to give a coke to his daughter. And worst of all, Holling's friends don't show up as his friends in the start of the book, but without any explanation, or development, their all a sudden his friends now. This book is just so bad. It's almost like it was written on the first draft. The Wednesday Wars is the exact reason that you shouldn't sacrifice entertainment, and an actual story, for realism. The Wednesday Wars is the worst book I have read in a long time. 1/5

This book is fantastic. It has compelling characters, great pacing, and a fresh take on bullying. It never feels like it is pandering to the reader, and instead gives us a realistic display of the modern day childhood. Even so, there are some flaws. Although the book very rarely repeats the tired 'good vs. evil' trope, it sometimes does. I really wish we could of gotten a perspective for Julian. Overall, Wonder is a great book with great characters, and has one of the best anti - bullying messages in a story. 4/5

This book is extremely predictable. By Ch. 6 I had already predicted the rest of the book, and you will too. This book relies on overdone tropes that even a baby can see through, but still tries to surprise the reader. This book has an unlikeable main character, that never grows a personality. This book is based on a made up medieval scenario with fictional lords and cities, yet for no reason the author puts in a real historical person John Bell. It makes no sense and derailed the story. This book has one of the most stupid villains I have ever seen. There were some good moments in the book. I really liked the character of Bear and would love to read a book all about him. I also like how the story is written, it's really thrilling and tense. Overall this book was bad, but had some good aspects to it. 1.5/5