Dead End in Norvelt by Jack Gantos
4 OUT OF 5 STARS

“Don’t ever forget your history,” she sang, “or any wicked soul can lie to you and get away with it.”

I wasn’t really sure how I was going to feel about this book and at first I almost stopped listening to it. I decided to continue and I am so glad that I did. This book was really great and it was so hilarious. Jack was such a funny kid and all the things he got into ended up being funny and sometimes pretty crazy. So many crazy things happened to Jack in the summer. Miss Volker was hilarious too! She was also kind of crazy, but it was cool. I really enjoyed reading this book and the characters were fantastic.

It was a fun book and will definitely have you cracking up! I was laughing so much throughout work. I loved that lots of the things in the story were true. Jack Gantos took part of his life and turned it into a fictional book, but lots of things that happened in the book really happened to Jack in real life. I also loved that there was a lot of history in the book and it was fun hearing about things that happened long ago. Jack Gantos actually read his own book for the audiobook and that was cool. I definitely recommend this book.

“You don’t have to do what your parents want, or what your boyfriend wants, for you to be happy. You just have to be yourself, for there is no love greater than self love.”

Goodreads Description: Melding the entirely true and the wildly fictional, Dead End in Norvelt is a novel about an incredible two months for a kid named Jack Gantos, whose plans for vacation excitement are shot down when he is “grounded for life” by his feuding parents, and whose nose spews bad blood at every little shock he gets.  But plenty of excitement (and shocks) are coming Jack’s way once his mom loans him out to help a feisty old neighbor with a most unusual chore—typewriting obituaries filled with stories about the people who founded his Utopian town. As one obituary leads to another, Jack is launched on a strange adventure involving molten wax, Eleanor Roosevelt, twisted promises, a homemade airplane, Girl Scout cookies, a man on a trike, a dancing plague, voices from the past, Hells Angels . . . and possibly murder. 

Recent Posts from the Week:

• Friday Finds #15. – Books I added to my TBR this week.
• Small Book Haul & Other Things. – A few books I bought this week and some other random bookish talk.
• Broken Hearts, Fences, and Other Things to Mend. – My thoughts on the Broken Hearts & Revenge Series so far.
• Top Ten Tuesday || Series I Haven’t Read Yet. – Ten series that I haven’t read yet, but really want to.

I plan to read as much as possible this weekend, because I really want to get An Ember in the Ashes read. I also need to finally really read ’89 Walls for review. Anyway, that’s all for this post! I hope everyone is having a great weekend! Bye! ❤