{"id":3055,"date":"2006-03-16T01:15:00","date_gmt":"2006-03-16T01:15:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/writingya.com\/?p=3055"},"modified":"2018-11-20T05:25:20","modified_gmt":"2018-11-20T05:25:20","slug":"humiliation-zits-junior-high-shame-has","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/writingya.com\/?p=3055","title":{"rendered":"Humiliation? Zits? Junior High shame has "No Effect""},"content":{"rendered":"

It’s a story of that weird time before boys get to be Boys – when they are still skinny, zit-faced and nervous, and not yet the swaggering, obnoxious high schoolers they will become… It’s a story of the heartbreak and humor and humiliation of being a boy in junior high. No Effect<\/b><\/a> is a sweet, emotionally observant boy story about… Wrestling, of all things. While I’m not a fan of Hulk Hogan<\/a> et al<\/em>, this novel makes high school wrestling seem like a sport with a bit of heart.<\/p>\n

Skinny, lightweight little eighth grader Tyler has had his share of take-downs lately. First, his Dad died last year, and he had the worst asthma episode of his life. He hardly remembers the funeral, because he was in a drugged out haze. His Mom’s gone mental with the protectiveness, and his best friend, Lymie, thinks he’s a chick magnet.<\/p>\n

Going into his last year of junior high, Tyler wants to begin to make his mark – to alert the legions of girls that he’s on his way, but because of his asthma, his Mom says “no way” to his going out for a sport like wrestling. When he finally talks her into it, he regrets it — the coach is a sadist.<\/p>\n

Things take a strange turn when Tyler’s science teacher has a stroke — right in front of him — and dies on the way to the hospital. Then the coach freezes on the floor, turns purple, and squeaks “Doctor!”<\/em> while showing them an exercise during wrestling. With old teachers dropping like flies and new ones cropping up every period — including his cool next door neighbor Chuckie, who is filling in for the wrestling coach — Tyler is beginning to believe that his year is a little jinxed.<\/p>\n

And then comes Miss Williams, the last substitute teacher – and Tyler believes he’s in love.<\/p>\n

The last of a funny and heartening trio of books about Tyler and his best friend\/best enemy, Lymie, Daniel Hayes’<\/a> novel about all the things that bounce against an adolescent boy is both amusing and heartfelt, capturing the growing up years of a nice, if delusional, kid named Tyler.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It’s a story of that weird time before boys get to be Boys – when they are still skinny, zit-faced and nervous, and not…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[5],"class_list":["post-3055","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-reviews"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/writingya.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3055","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/writingya.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/writingya.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/writingya.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/writingya.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3055"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/writingya.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3055\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3481,"href":"https:\/\/writingya.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3055\/revisions\/3481"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/writingya.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3055"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/writingya.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3055"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/writingya.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3055"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}