Born to Rock

Back flips concerning Born to Rock By Gordon Korman

Inside cover reads:
"Leo Caraway- president of the Young Republicans club, 4.0 GPA, future Harvard student- had his entire future perfectly planned out. That was, until the X factor. As in Marion X. McMurphy, aka King Maggot, the lead singer of Purge, the most popular, most destructive band punk rock has ever seen. As in Leo's biological father. At first, Leo is horrified to find out his real father is punk rock's most notorious bad boy. Not only is he not a punk rock fan, but he believes the X factor (the Maggot blood in his veins) is a dangerous time bomb just waiting to explode. And sure enough it does- when Leo stubbornly defends the unlikliest of people, there by getting himself falsely accused of cheating on a test. Because of the blemish on his record, the once-star pupil finds his scholarship to Harvard taken away. So he accepts a job as a roadie with Purge's summer revival tour, all the while secretly hoping to convince King Maggot to pay his tuition. But life on the road is even crazier than Leo bargained for, and before the summer is over, he will finally discover the surprising truth about his dad, his friends, and most important, himself."

My Rxn:

Allow me to begin with the cover. I love adolescent lit these days. They have such interesting covers, and this one is really responsible for making me pick up the book. It's so cute! a baby! with a mohawk! yay!

Ok. So i polished off the book in about 4 hours. It's a nice little read. i like how it's about the punk scene, but there's not a lot of vulgarity in the book. Actually, i believe that there are no F-bombs at all.. which is great. There are some scenes depicting drug use and violence, but nothing too graphic. Our protagonist is 17.... but i think that readers from age 13 and up will enjoy this one. Fans of punk rock will like it. Leo is a great character. He's complex and has lots of loose ends to take care of- mainly finding his dad and dealing with his anger. It blasts some of the stereotypes about preppies and goths... which is always a good thing for students to read. It's not entirely classroom appropriate, so I wouldn't use it in school. I would recommend it to my students, and it wins the Word Nerd seal of approval. The end is a little icky though. this wouldn't seem like a happily-ever-after book, but it kind of ends that way... but not in a real syrupy style. So it's ok!!

I also read No More Dead Dogs by the same author. read about it here.



Some great quotes!!

First sentence of the book:
"The thing about a cavity search is this: it has nothing to do with the dentist. If only it did" (vii).

"It was the weirdest thing of all about Melinda. Just when you thought you had her figured out, she'd do the exact opposite of what you expected" (6). (I was talking to my friend, Chad, about how this happens in friendships.)

"For some reason I was incapable of standing up to the girl. I definitely wasn't attracted to her. She wasn't exactly my type, with the black clothes, black hair, black lipstick, black nail polish, and black tattoo. The only thing that wasn't black was the nose ring (gold). Not only did she adore punk bands with names like Purge and Sphincter 8, but she had to look like them, too" (7).

"Melinda wouldn't wear capri pants if you threatened her with an ax" (10).

"Every time I think I've got her pegged, something happens to remind me that Melinda may as well be from outer space for all I understand her" (16).

"If that didn't work, I was prepared to carry it to Mordor and hurl it into the fires of Mount Doom" (52). MAJOR PROPS for alluding to Tolkien.

"If only life came with a rewind/erase button"(60).

"The white-hot rage wasn't there. The leader of the angriest band in America looked like he only wanted to kill two or three people instead of the usual five hundred" (73).

"We'd started with precious little in common, and seem to have less every year. But even as she grew into a goth, and I grew into a Republican, we always got along. Who knew that the one thing that would come between us would be the one thing we actually shared? King Maggot was her idol. You'd think that me being his flesh and blood would be good in her eyes. But she seemed to resent it, like I'd snuck up and stolen him from her" (109).

"You know what punk is? A bunch of no-talent guys who really, really want to be in a band. No body reads music, nobody plays the mandolin, and you're too dumb to write songs about mythology or Middle -earth. So what's your style? Three chords, cranked out fast and loud and distorted because your instruments are crap and you can't play them worth a damn. And you scream your lungs out to cover up the fact that you can't sing. It should suck, but here's the thing- it doesn't. Rock and roll can be so full of itself, but not this. It's simple and angry and raw" (186).

Two words: PUNK ROCK!!!!!