The Trouble in Me

June 22, 2015
This installment in Gantos’s ongoing chronicle of his tumultuous youth opens ominously, with 14-year-old Jackie crossing the backyard with matches and a can of lighter fluid. What could possibly go wrong? Conflagrations (more than one) follow as Jack, whose family has relocated again, attempts to reinvent himself in the image of his new neighbor, notorious juvenile delinquent, Gary Pagoda. Gary’s criminal skills include shoplifting, car theft, and possible statutory rape, but he also has a predilection for death-defying stunts—“the Pagoda Olympics”—like catapulting Jackie over the house in hopes of hitting the pool. Full of “don’t try this at home” moments (to the breaking point of credulity), Jack’s interior monologue also has a heartbreaking edge, as he struggles to distance himself from his father’s derogatory comments about his size and worth. Chronologically, the events Gantos describes partially bridge the gap between Jack’s Black Book (1997) and his Printz Honor winner, Hole in My Life (2002). The book also only covers a few weeks one summer—one suspects that Gantos isn’t finished mining his childhood for novel-worthy moments. Ages 12–up.

June 1, 2015
A misbegotten effort to reinvent himself leads young "Jack" to burn his notebooks and clothes, though not quite his bridges, in Gantos' latest burst of confessional fiction. This summer episode falls in chronology shortly after Jack's Black Book (1997). Dissatisfied with his life and looking for a new model, 14-year-old Jack fixes with characteristic lack of good judgment on next-door-neighbor Gary Pagoda-a leather-jacketed older teen fresh out of juvie. Gary turns out to be a dab hand not only at testing his new amanuensis with life-threatening backyard games, but also hot-wiring cars and other thrillingly illegal amusements. Reflected in both jacket cover and chapter titles, fire or fireworks play a recurring role in events as Jack tries to make a clean break with his past by torching both his childhood journals and his clothes (replacing the latter with shoplifted goods). Jack's narrative has a Wimpy Kid tone and appeal as, looking back, he's well-aware of his own youthful fecklessness and almost eager to point out where he went wrong. But, not very surprisingly for readers who have been following his checkered career, he turns out to be a miserable failure at real evil. Readers will laugh, possibly uneasily, at Jack's reckless antics and lack of impulse control, but they will probably also sympathize with his deep itch to make a change. (preface, afterword) (Historical fiction. 13-15)

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October 1, 2015

Gr 7-10-Situated sometime between the events in Jack's Black Book (1997) and Hole in My Life (2002, both Farrar), Gantos's latest offering is a fictionalized look at a critical juncture in his own adolescence. Shortly after moving to a new town, 14-year-old Jack meets Gary Pagoda, a way-too-cool-for-school delinquent who is the utter antithesis of Jack. He smokes, wears a black leather jacket, curses like a sailor, steals cars, may have impregnated a local girl, and shares Jack's enthusiasm for all things pyrotechnic. Dissatisfied with his own seeming weakness and looking to reinvent himself, Jack falls in love with the idea-if not exactly the reality-of bad boy Pagoda. In an effort to impress his new mentor, Jack literally risks life and limb in cringe-inducing scenes of backyard stunts involving fire, ropes, and all manner of terrible ideas-many of which should come with a "Don't try this at home!" warning label. Beneath the bravado, however, Jack struggles with self-acceptance and what it means to be a man. He allows his manipulative and mean role model to goad him into increasingly dangerous situations, losing pieces of himself with every moral compromise. Though it's clear by the end that Jack is not cut out for a criminal lifestyle, the seeds of his tendency to relinquish control of his life to others have been planted and the stage set for the trouble he meets in Hole in My Life. Gantos's characteristic humor and keen observation of the fragile teen psyche combine with heartbreaking authenticity in this unflinching look at how a good kid can easily go down a wrong path. VERDICT Hand this to the so-called "bad" kids, the lost kids, and the ones struggling to find their way.-Kiera Parrott, School Library Journal

Copyright 2015 School Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

Starred review from August 1, 2015
Grades 7-10 *Starred Review* Know thyself, Alexander Pope advises us, and Gantos does that in spades in this insightful prequel to his award-winning memoir Hole in My Life (2002). Jack is 14 on the fateful day he meets his mysterious older neighbor Gary Pagoda and, enchanted, quickly becomes his acolyte. However, there's trouble ahead, for Gary is the kind of kid parents warn their children against. But Jack doesn't care. Bored, lonely, self-hating, and sad, he is on fire with the desire to be like Garyor, better yet, to be Gary. But in seeking to emulate him, Jack's behavior takes a precipitous turn for the worse. Will he flameout in the process of transforming himself? One of the tools the spellbinding Gantos uses in this incendiary fictionalized memoir is simile and metaphor. Fire is a recurring motif (it's what brings the boys together and informs their developing relationship): meat drippings that Jack grills crisp like someone burning at the stake, while mosquitoes are winged formations of humming hypodermics. Abundant style and substance make this an irresistible cautionary tale that will doubtlessly drive eager readers back to Hole in My Life for further adventures.HIGH-DEMAND BACKSTORY: Gantos has won a Newbery Medal, Printz Honor, Sibert Honor, and countless hearts. Readers will want to know how he became one of a kind.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2015, American Library Association.)

November 30, 2015
Gantos reflects on his early teenage years, a key period of time that led him down the life of crime and prison he captured in his previous memoir, Hole in My Life. This book recounts a two-week period when the author was 14 years old and first started hanging out with Gary Pagoda, a notorious juvenile delinquent in the Fort Lauderdale neighborhood where Gantos and his family lived. Gantos provides the voice in the audio edition to the detriment of his story: his focus throughout is on the enunciation of the words rather than the emotional components of the story. He seems too intent on getting the words right. As a result, his performance falls flat and never allows the listener to settle in and get absorbed into the story. Ages 12–up. A Farrar, Straus and Giroux hardcover.

September 1, 2015
By the summer before eighth grade, young Jack Gantos didn't think much of himself. He had the milky physique of a very soft boy and looked like a boneless squid. His mouth bully of a father called him ass-wipe, shithead, and brain-dead. About to start at his sixth school in eight grades, he had no friends, and girls paid him no mind. He was a drifty kid who was lost at seaeasily led off course. Bored with his own life, he tried to be somebody else and fell into the orbit of juvenile delinquent neighbor Gary Pagoda. Suddenly, he felt alive doing stupid stuff with Garydiving into a pool of flames; being catapulted from a tree, over a house, and into a swimming pool; roller-skating down a sheet-metal slide through a hula-hoop ring of fire. Gary was Peter Pan; Jack, his shadow. Jack could feel Gary molding him into an Adam or a golem or some magical creature that had once been a handful of dirt but was now under his spell. Gantos effectively narrates his own story in this memoir, reviewing portions of his life to identify the character flaw that led him to abandon his better self in favor of later becoming a drug smuggler who ended up in a federal penitentiary. As explained in the afterword, this volume acts as a preface to Hole in My Life (rev. 5/02), and readers who read both will experience the full arc of Jack's wild behavior, severe consequences, and, ultimately, redemption. dean schneider

(Copyright 2015 by The Horn Book, Incorporated, Boston. All rights reserved.)