Under the "Comments" section below, you will find book reviews of the written AND the video/audio style.  Look through them to help you decide on which book to chose to read next; if you'd like to submit a review for extra credit, please follow the format of the sample one below.  Once you've completed it, let me know so that I can give you extra credit!

Rash - A sample review by Mr. M

Alright, it's official - Pete Hautman is awesome.  After reading Godless and Invisible, it became clear he was a great writer that fused humor into real, true characters, creating stories that forced me to read them almost overnight.  His latest book, a 249 page sci-fci/young adult novel called Rash, is perhaps his best book yet.  For me, that's saying a lot.

The book is about Bo Marsten, a normal teenager living a normal life - that is, normal for the year 2050 in the USSA, the United Safer States of America.  In this time, everyone is completely and utterly consumed by safety - people wear walking helmets whenever they go outside, games like football and hockey are outlawed, as are owning chainsaws, and people are arrested for anything remotely resembling unsafe activity.  For example, a man in Bo's neighborhood serves 5-10 years in forced labor camp for dropping an apricot from his grocery bag, which a woman slips on and bruises her leg.

Bo's family is full of trouble - his father and brother are working shelling shrimp and patching roads after being arrested, and his grandfather, a relic who was born in good old 1990, is constantly complaining about how crazy the society has become.  Bo sees this craziness first hand when, at school, he hits his arch-enemy for flirting with Bo's girlfriend.  Bo is sentenced to serve time in the McDonald's prison facility in Canada, where he is forced to create frozen pizzas for 16 hours a day.  It is in this prison that he joins a football team, makes friends, and uses his computer created AI program to act as a lawyer to help get him from jail.  He also discovers something about himself, and society, that forces him to truly question who he is and what he wants from life.

I would recommend this book to anyone who has ever questioned whether laws and rules are becoming to strict, or who has ever read about a lawsuit over spilled coffee and thought "Are you serious?"  Not only has Hautman created a likeable, deep character in Bo, but he has also written a book that will truly make you question where we are going in our society.  The sci-fi aspect, and bit of computer and football focus, might make this book more appealing to males than females, but I think everyone could really get into this book.  

I would heartily recommend this book, and the rest of Hautman's as well - or at least the 2 others above that I've read.

Overall, an excellent book.  5 out of 5 Stars!  

- - Mr. M