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Prepare yourself for some off-the-cuff book talk as I tackle another middle grade book, Chapter by Chapter.
This is MJ Munoz, I'm bringing you my Chapter by Chapter review of Me Necmi.
This time it's Chapter 6, and this time I'm still disappointed in the book, and I'm very frustrated,
and I don't know exactly what I'm going to do, because I have not been enjoying this book,
and I haven't been enjoying it for a while.
I didn't enjoy the introduction, and I haven't really enjoyed anything else.
There was one bright spot, which was Chapter 3, where Geoffrey McGee was interacting with Amanda Beale,
and that was good, because he was interacting with a character,
and whenever he is actually interacting with a character, I can enjoy something, because I'm learning about Geoffrey's character,
and he is an interesting character when he's interacting with people,
but when he's doing these mythic feats, it doesn't really do anything for me.
I mentioned this in my short review of my reaction, which didn't really have a conclusion.
There wasn't enough time there, I just kind of threw out my opinion on it so far,
or on the chapter, and then didn't really get to say much, because I had a short amount of time,
and there wasn't really anything for me to grab onto and say, unless I wanted to be mean.
I'm trying so hard to be nice, I'm trying so hard not to be a jerk about this,
but this book just isn't for me, I think.
There's two mythic instances that happen in this chapter.
It's a six...well, I don't remember how long the chapter took to read or listen to,
because I haven't listened to the audiobook version of it, which again, the audiobook version of it is really fantastic.
The performance is great, and I have no complaints about that.
It's actually delightful, so it's weird.
It's very strange, because it's a delight to listen to, but it's like there's nothing to hear.
I feel really badly saying it like that, but I'm not sure how else to put it,
other than to emphasize that this isn't for me, this isn't my style, this isn't my taste, and it's not...
I'm not trying to force it to be for me, I'm just explaining that it isn't for me,
and I really would have liked it to be for me, but I guess not every book is, is it?
Not every book is, yeah, so...wow, it's so short.
So anyway, I pulled up the text here.
Chapter six is tiny, anyway.
It's talking about this Pickwell family, and I was assuming they were white at first,
because we last were in West End with some white folks.
They're definitely poor.
I know Pennsylvania is not technically the south, or I'm pretty sure it's not technically the south,
but it's like a very poor area for both blacks and whites.
This is a family with ten kids in it.
I counted the mom and dad, the grandmother and grandfather, the great-grandfather,
and some guy that they're helping.
That's fifteen people there who are eating at that house, if not living at that house.
And then Jeffrey sidles into the table, and he kind of just works in with the whole crowd of kids,
and he's able to get dinner.
But it's just so short, like, again, we get nothing from Jeffrey other than he runs away.
We get something from the characters, from the siblings, who all have D names,
including Dee Dee the baby, which Dee Dee's probably not actually Dee Dee, it's probably something else.
Anyway, and...yeah, we start off with the myth of Mrs. Pickwell's whistle,
which cuts the sludge of five o'clock whatever to five o'clock sounds to get her entire family,
including these, you know, this guy they're helping out, a cabbie or something like that,
and like the grandma and grandpa and everybody who probably isn't far from the house,
to the house for dinner.
And like, I don't know, it's funny, I really like the book The Princess Bride,
not just the movie, the book, the book is, well, I really like half of the book The Princess Bride.
It's got a very strange structure to it, which is almost similar to this,
where the author is obviously very skilled, and the author and I obviously have different tastes.
In The Princess Bride, the author, I can't remember if it's William Gold, or it must be William Gold,
and the fake author of the book is S. Morgenstern.
And the conceit of the book is that I guess William Gold is presenting to us
the translated work of S. Morgenstern, and S. Morgenstern was supposedly like this Florinese scholar,
I think it was what it was, and that William Gold is translating, or like presenting us his book,
that Morgenstern translated from the original Florinese, and there's all these things
that I believe are from Gold's perspective, where he's like talking about his life,
and it's like a fictional version of Gold, I hope it's a fictional version of Gold,
anyway, I won't go on about that. But it's zany and ridiculous,
and there's lots of asides that are made, things in parentheses, like here,
the pickles were always helping out somebody, it's really interesting,
this sounds like a really wonderful family, and it seems like they're really nice.
I have no idea if we're ever going to see them again, or if they really matter in the long scheme of things,
maybe they do, maybe they're the white families he's with, like I talked about,
possibly happening, and then the black family we'll see as the Beals, we don't know.
But, oh yeah, yeah, so it's like, you know, in the history of kisses, there was never,
you know, a kiss as good as the, you know, the Wesley and Buttercup kiss at the end of the book,
or whatever, like there's that kind of talk in that book, and there's also like,
like this was before Stu, or this was after Stu, everything was after Stu,
like these are side comments, or like these qualifying statements that are meant to make the story better,
and these are in the straight parts of the book, just the Princess Bride type of parts of the book,
as opposed to the outer narrative, and for some reason, most of those are much better,
but you also get much more story, much more background, much more insight into characters,
there's always something going on with the characters in the Princess Bride versus this,
I guess Jeffrey's the main character, but he gets so little focus, it's very frustrating,
and like there's nothing being said about him. Let me see, is there, can I pick out real quick,
I mean, it's not, I can just read the whole chapter, but I don't want to do that, I don't know,
I don't know, I've already listened to this thing twice, I don't want to read through it a third time.
As whistles go, that's what it is, as whistles go, Mrs. Pickwell's was one of the all-time greats,
it reeled in every Pickwell kid for dinner every night, never was a Pickwell kid ever late for dinner,
it's a record that will probably stay in forever, the whistle wasn't loud, it wasn't screechy,
it was a simple two-note job, one high note, one low, to an outsider, it wouldn't sound all that special,
but to the ears of the Pickwell kids, it was magic, somehow, and it continues,
and that's like a half, it's not half the chapter, but it's close, anyway, it just isn't doing anything for me,
and again, we're getting character and we're getting some texture on this rando family,
we just met the Pickwells, I don't know if we'll ever see them again, I guess I could like, you know,
control F and search through the document to see if it's there or not, but, you know, I just, I don't really care,
you know, like, I'm here for Jeffrey, I'm here for Maniac McGee, and I'm not getting Maniac McGee,
and I don't really like that.
What do you think, do you like this? Have you read this book? Is it good?
Does it get great in chapter 7, chapter 8, chapter 20? Tell me, tell me, I want to know.
I hope you enjoyed that. Please remember to like, share, subscribe.
I invite you to comment, ask questions, and share your thoughts with me.
It's always more fun when you're part of the conversation.
Until next time, keep reading, be well, and do good things.
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