In this impressionistic memoir, Kevin Brockmeier reflects on the awkward changes that come with seventh grade, from the excruciating coming into self-awareness, to the intensified romantic obsessions, to the painful realignment of friendships that tends to happen around this age. For poor Kevin, all this awkwardness was exacerbated by his sensitive spirit, his creative streak, and a few genuine dickheads for classmates at his private Christian junior high/high school. Not that Kevin is an angel....

Brockmeier has crafted an intimate, all too evocative memoir that focuses entirely on his seventh grade year, 1985-86, in Little Rock, Arkansas. He writes in the present tense, from a third person perspective which lends immediacy, intensity, and just the right amount of distance, capturing all of the thrills, uncertainty, anxiety and why-did-I-do-thats of adolescence. His recollections of the mid 1980s junior high zeitgeist are spot-on.

Dear Mr. Brockmeier, I commend you on your thoroughly ordinary young adolescent experience. I somewhat regret my realization that I do not care. Affectionately yours, JDGBuy this title from Powell's Books.

What an extraordinarily unique, moving memoir. He takes you back to his Seventh Grade experience. The language shines. The embarrassment cringes. Wow.

Piercing in its ability to recreate the feeling of seventh grade, if not my actual experience. And the hard cover itself is delicious!

Loved the idea of this (a memoir of seventh grade -- who among us couldn't write a sad one?), and was willing to tolerate the concept that it's a memoir written in the third-person, but this really just never got going and kept running out of gas as it went. A lot of it was just boring. There's got to be a way to harness the misery of seventh grade without verging into either "Wonder Years" or Judy Blume territory, but it's not here.

I reviewed this for the Rumpus and here is what I said:A Brief History of the Dead describes a limbo inhabited by souls still remembered by the living. Only when the deceased have been completely forgotten do they pass to the next stage of the afterlife. In “The Ceiling,” a story in Things That Fall From the Sky, a marriage unravels as the sky lowers, inexorably, to the ground. In The Illumination, pain is visible. It radiates from its victims for all to see.Kevin Brockmeier’s novels and stories...

I have a theory about Ben Stiller films. You either like the films where he plays an everyman foil or you like the films where he plays a wildly outrageous character. You could probably like both too, but my point for purpose here is: I like the outrageous character pieces and have great difficulty with the films where he is an everyman who is constantly getting beat up in more dynamically unsettling ways. (Meet the Parents, for example) In those stories I tend to associate myself with Ben’s cha...

This is one of those books where you find yourself marveling pretty much on every page at the author's use of language. Here's an example, choosing completely at random: "Percy changes course, snapping the treats up, then harvesting the spice from Kevin's fingers with his tongue. Kevin scratches his brow, that funny flat spot where it looks as if styling gel has been combed through his fur. He is a long silver muffler of an animal..."As a writer, you have to marvel at the cadence of the sentence...

Since I prefer fiction over non-fiction, I haven't read a great deal of memoirs or autobiographies, but I have read my share. I can, however, unequivocally say that this is the only memoir I've ever read (or heard of) that is written from the third person point of view. Since memoirs place you right in the mind and heart of the narrator, a memoir in the third person isn't a memoir at all, which makes it a bit jarring and difficult to jump into.I wanted to read this memoir because it had gotten s...

I was skeptical at first as I thought I might have picked up a young adult memoir, but I quickly realized that was the wrong approach. But then I thought maybe Brockmeier was trying to capitalize on 80s/90s nostalgia by specifically listing beloved and bygone products that would resonate with those who grew up during that time. Again, I had the wrong approach to the book. Halfway through, I was hooked and laughing out loud at Brockmeier's ability to adequately capture what it was like to be a 7t...

I think I might have been able to like this book more if it was more fictionalized or if it was more of a straight memoir. I'm not sure it works as well trying to function as both at the same time. While I was in middle school a decade later and one state over, there were still a lot of little details that were familiar to me and made it relevant for me and gave me that sort of wistful nostalgic feeling that reading a memoir or coming of age novel should. There were some really amazing lines and...

I am not far removed from Kevin in age or geography, so let me start by saying the detail he achieves is astounding. Proustian rushes stacked up on every page. Remembering so much ephemera, once beloved and now retrieved from oblivion, underlines Kevin's feelings that this year of transition has robbed him of all stability. My problem is with the larger arc. There is a terrific start that had me thinking how great it would be to make the (slim) memoir cover JUST that first discombobulating day.

I had the pleasure of meeting author Kevin Brockmeier a couple summers ago, in the most idyllic setting imaginable for another literature loving native southerner. It was a literary cocktail party, nay a soirée, held in the shadow of William Faulkner’s home, Rowan Oak, in Oxford, MS. Sweaty fellow book fiends sipped mint juleps from clear plastic cups, nibbling snacks from little paper plates sagging in the humidity. It was hotter than hell; hot as June in Mississippi, which it was.Author Tom Fr...

I know that successful memoirs don't deal with an entire life, but usually a small part or events tied together by a theme. Still, it's hard to believe that a whole book about a boy's seventh grade experience could be captivating. And yet this is. Partly because of Brockmeier's ability to capture every sensory detail of the experience in a way that made me feel I was right there with him, partly because of the change the boy undergoes, and partly because--this being Kevin Brockmeier, of the deli...

Five adjectives to describe this book: Hilarious, moving, weird, endearing, awesome-beyond-all-adjectives.

Continuing on my somewhat accidental theme of trying to understand the psyches of early teenaged boys better (I wonder why...), I was intrigued to read a personal memoir by an accomplished novelist written in the third person, like a novel. Young Kevin as hero deals with previous best friends turning against him in overtly cruel ways, having his sense of humour and popular culture icons (things that most identify him as him) mocked, and setting himself up for embarrassment by innocently dressing...

I was really looking forward to reading this book, and it was decently written. I just did not find it to be gripping at all, none of the characters--including Kevin--are very developed, and there is really no plot. I did not particularly enjoy seventh grade, I can relate to the awkward, uneasiness that Kevin experiences. But, if I am going to read about a boy's junior high journey, I think I would rather read Adam Levin's 1000 page phone book, The Instructions. Also, this is a memoir, but how d...

Wow, did I enjoy this book. I so admire Kevin Brockmeier's writing, and when I heard he'd written a memoir with some magic realism thrown in, I was down to read it. I was shocked/amazed when I began the book to find that he's violated another huge "rule" of memoir writing -- he's written it in very close limited third-person point of view. But quickly I fell into the rhythm of it. I adored the language, the details, and the non-judgmental delivery of what happened that year that this narrative t...

My first book of 2015. I picked this little gem up on a lark at the public library. I'm a sucker for anything that reminds me/takes me back to my childhood/adolescent. The book is a memoir of the authors 7th grade year. Although it takes place in 1985, approx. 10 years after my 7th grade year, it was was timeless in its portrayal of the highs/lows of early teenage-hood, the sense of wonderment, fitting in and all the rest. It was a quick easy read and I can't say how much I love this little book...