Monique Nguyen

I'm taken by this nine-year-old genius, Frank. It's hard not love him with respect, admiration, protectiveness, & want a Frank in your life too. This novel is funny, heartwarming, sad, impressive, honest, & fluid; made possible by each character woven perfectly together. Thank you Julia, for a wonderfully feel-good read.

I tried to like it but struggled in doing so; gave up before page 75. It felt far-reaching & a tad too much of everything to execute the plot. I found it remotely relatable to parenting in modern times; let alone comical (as per the reviews). Perhaps you need to be a parent, living this lifestyle with so-called academia competitiveness to appreciate this novel.

I LOVE this book & LOVE how Sloane writes! She's undoubtedly gifted. All the raving reviews ring true ---> This book is a must-read & Sloane is a must-read Author.

I wanted to like this book but it was hard to. To me, firstly, Luis Urrea tries too hard to be funny; they repeatedly land like dad-jokes. The story line, plot or whatever you want to call what's happening in this book feels like it's constantly being forced to be entertaining, as if it'd happen in real-life but is actually far from reality ... From the exaggerated characters to inaccurate city culture descriptions to sudden racism to the randomness of one thing after another; this book is hosh-posh. For example, Luis's use of metaphors & analogies don't match where he places them. Thus he switches the elementary grammar that dominates this book with out-of-nowhere 'big words.' For me, Luis is trying too hard to write an intelluctually witty, supposedly in-depth, relatable book. He's all over the place ... This book would probably be better suited for Junior High School kids.