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This is MJ, I'm an author, I'm an artist, I'm an analyzer.

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Find all my work at MJMunoz.com

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Prepare yourself for some off-the-cuff book talk as I tackle another middle grade book, Chapter by Chapter.

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This is MJ Munoz, I'm bringing you my Chapter by Chapter review of Me Necmi.

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This time it's Chapter 6, and this time I'm still disappointed in the book, and I'm very frustrated,

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and I don't know exactly what I'm going to do, because I have not been enjoying this book,

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and I haven't been enjoying it for a while.

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I didn't enjoy the introduction, and I haven't really enjoyed anything else.

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There was one bright spot, which was Chapter 3, where Geoffrey McGee was interacting with Amanda Beale,

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and that was good, because he was interacting with a character,

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and whenever he is actually interacting with a character, I can enjoy something, because I'm learning about Geoffrey's character,

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and he is an interesting character when he's interacting with people,

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but when he's doing these mythic feats, it doesn't really do anything for me.

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I mentioned this in my short review of my reaction, which didn't really have a conclusion.

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There wasn't enough time there, I just kind of threw out my opinion on it so far,

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or on the chapter, and then didn't really get to say much, because I had a short amount of time,

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and there wasn't really anything for me to grab onto and say, unless I wanted to be mean.

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I'm trying so hard to be nice, I'm trying so hard not to be a jerk about this,

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but this book just isn't for me, I think.

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There's two mythic instances that happen in this chapter.

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It's a six...well, I don't remember how long the chapter took to read or listen to,

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because I haven't listened to the audiobook version of it, which again, the audiobook version of it is really fantastic.

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The performance is great, and I have no complaints about that.

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It's actually delightful, so it's weird.

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It's very strange, because it's a delight to listen to, but it's like there's nothing to hear.

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I feel really badly saying it like that, but I'm not sure how else to put it,

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other than to emphasize that this isn't for me, this isn't my style, this isn't my taste, and it's not...

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I'm not trying to force it to be for me, I'm just explaining that it isn't for me,

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and I really would have liked it to be for me, but I guess not every book is, is it?

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Not every book is, yeah, so...wow, it's so short.

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So anyway, I pulled up the text here.

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Chapter six is tiny, anyway.

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It's talking about this Pickwell family, and I was assuming they were white at first,

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because we last were in West End with some white folks.

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They're definitely poor.

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I know Pennsylvania is not technically the south, or I'm pretty sure it's not technically the south,

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but it's like a very poor area for both blacks and whites.

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This is a family with ten kids in it.

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I counted the mom and dad, the grandmother and grandfather, the great-grandfather,

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and some guy that they're helping.

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That's fifteen people there who are eating at that house, if not living at that house.

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And then Jeffrey sidles into the table, and he kind of just works in with the whole crowd of kids,

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and he's able to get dinner.

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But it's just so short, like, again, we get nothing from Jeffrey other than he runs away.

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We get something from the characters, from the siblings, who all have D names,

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including Dee Dee the baby, which Dee Dee's probably not actually Dee Dee, it's probably something else.

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Anyway, and...yeah, we start off with the myth of Mrs. Pickwell's whistle,

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which cuts the sludge of five o'clock whatever to five o'clock sounds to get her entire family,

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including these, you know, this guy they're helping out, a cabbie or something like that,

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and like the grandma and grandpa and everybody who probably isn't far from the house,

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to the house for dinner.

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And like, I don't know, it's funny, I really like the book The Princess Bride,

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not just the movie, the book, the book is, well, I really like half of the book The Princess Bride.

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It's got a very strange structure to it, which is almost similar to this,

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where the author is obviously very skilled, and the author and I obviously have different tastes.

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In The Princess Bride, the author, I can't remember if it's William Gold, or it must be William Gold,

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and the fake author of the book is S. Morgenstern.

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And the conceit of the book is that I guess William Gold is presenting to us

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the translated work of S. Morgenstern, and S. Morgenstern was supposedly like this Florinese scholar,

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I think it was what it was, and that William Gold is translating, or like presenting us his book,

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that Morgenstern translated from the original Florinese, and there's all these things

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that I believe are from Gold's perspective, where he's like talking about his life,

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and it's like a fictional version of Gold, I hope it's a fictional version of Gold,

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anyway, I won't go on about that. But it's zany and ridiculous,

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and there's lots of asides that are made, things in parentheses, like here,

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the pickles were always helping out somebody, it's really interesting,

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this sounds like a really wonderful family, and it seems like they're really nice.

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I have no idea if we're ever going to see them again, or if they really matter in the long scheme of things,

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maybe they do, maybe they're the white families he's with, like I talked about,

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possibly happening, and then the black family we'll see as the Beals, we don't know.

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But, oh yeah, yeah, so it's like, you know, in the history of kisses, there was never,

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you know, a kiss as good as the, you know, the Wesley and Buttercup kiss at the end of the book,

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or whatever, like there's that kind of talk in that book, and there's also like,

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like this was before Stu, or this was after Stu, everything was after Stu,

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like these are side comments, or like these qualifying statements that are meant to make the story better,

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and these are in the straight parts of the book, just the Princess Bride type of parts of the book,

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as opposed to the outer narrative, and for some reason, most of those are much better,

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but you also get much more story, much more background, much more insight into characters,

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there's always something going on with the characters in the Princess Bride versus this,

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I guess Jeffrey's the main character, but he gets so little focus, it's very frustrating,

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and like there's nothing being said about him. Let me see, is there, can I pick out real quick,

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I mean, it's not, I can just read the whole chapter, but I don't want to do that, I don't know,

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I don't know, I've already listened to this thing twice, I don't want to read through it a third time.

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As whistles go, that's what it is, as whistles go, Mrs. Pickwell's was one of the all-time greats,

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it reeled in every Pickwell kid for dinner every night, never was a Pickwell kid ever late for dinner,

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it's a record that will probably stay in forever, the whistle wasn't loud, it wasn't screechy,

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it was a simple two-note job, one high note, one low, to an outsider, it wouldn't sound all that special,

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but to the ears of the Pickwell kids, it was magic, somehow, and it continues,

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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,

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and again, we're getting character and we're getting some texture on this rando family,

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we just met the Pickwells, I don't know if we'll ever see them again, I guess I could like, you know,

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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,

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you know, like, I'm here for Jeffrey, I'm here for Maniac McGee, and I'm not getting Maniac McGee,

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and I don't really like that.

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What do you think, do you like this? Have you read this book? Is it good?

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Does it get great in chapter 7, chapter 8, chapter 20? Tell me, tell me, I want to know.

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I hope you enjoyed that. Please remember to like, share, subscribe.

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I invite you to comment, ask questions, and share your thoughts with me.

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It's always more fun when you're part of the conversation.

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Until next time, keep reading, be well, and do good things.

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Visit MJMunoz.com for more of my work and help me build up the fortress fiction.