Michael Gerard Bauer

Representation: N/A?
Trigger warnings: N/A?
Score: Six points out of ten.
This review can also be found on The StoryGraph.

I don't know about this one, I had low expectations for this book after I read Don't Call Me Ishmael, made by the same author, and I didn't enjoy that book.
Update: This is a rather boring novel, if this was a rom-com, I didn't laugh once. I didn't enjoy any aspect of the book at all, despite the book being just over 200 pages. The two main characters were quite flat, Sebastian was just self-loathing, and Frida was rather moody, and that's it, the side characters didn't add much to the story as well. The story itself was rather flat, it's just the main two characters developing a relationship with one another, but I didn't feel anything for them, since they weren't well written in the first place.

The characters just move from place to place for no apparent reason and just contemplate and talk about random things, like the Pitch Drop Experiment, town planning, and writing a song (how are these things supposed to be relevant to the story?) The story was character-driven, so it described the settings minimally, which I didn't like. There was this one joke that was supposed to be funny but it wasn't, it was about a character called Tolly, and the joke was that it was a nickname for Leo Tolstoy, who made War and Peace, and one of the characters said that the name Warren Pearce sounds like War and Peace, I didn't laugh at that joke. If you want a good rom-com, skip this one and try The Sun is Also a Star. There's one more book I haven't read from this author called The Pain, Sir Tiffy, My Mother, Cyber Boy and Me and it looks interesting to me though I will go in with low expectations considering that I've read two of his novels already and they were only ok to say the least.… (altro)

This second Ishmael story revolves around the potential of poetry (including song lyrics) to capture and express emotions. For the teenagers Ishmael and his friend Razza, poetry is also a promising new way to approach girls. For Ishmael, who always fears to come across the wrong way and tends to find himself in embarrassing situations, words don't come easy, particularly not for wonderful Kelly. Plus, Ishmael thinks that he can't rival with Kelly's cool and sporty friend Brad. For Razza this is all different. He is relaxed and outspoken, convinced that he really knows what "chicks" like. In his persistent attempts to help Ishmael, Razza becomes the central figure of the story. Razza is also an important link to two other side stories of this book, those concerning the debating club (which connects to three other nerdy or unpopular school friends) and the revival of the Dugongs, the former university band of Ishmael's dad. In the end, these side stories converge nicely: one of the debating club nerds jumps in to help out Razza, and Razza jumps in to help out the Dugongs. Indeed, poetry works well for everybody in the end.
I found the story very funny and entertaining. Still, I liked the first book of the series better, perhaps because it is more introspective, more focused on Ishmael and less obsessed with teenage liaisions. For a non-native speaker like me, it is a great book to get or stay in touch with colloquial teenage language, perhaps with an Aussie bias. A fun read.… (altro)