today, it rained.

currently reading king dork by frank portman. it's what is classified as a "ya" or "young adult" novel. this category covers a lot of ground, as it is age-based, not theme-based, but the coming-of-age genre is immensely popular within the ya category, and king dork is one of these. c-o-a's can be banal & pendantic, as are melody carlson's attempts. king dork is not. it is both witty & wise. it is self-deprecating & bitingly funny & spot on. it is a good book. i'll give you a taste:

famous recording engineers and producers spend millions of dollars experimenting with effects and overloading pre-amps and poking holes in speakers with pencils and even pouring foreign substances over circuitry to achieve the sort of thing sam hellerman could accomplish just by being too cheap to buy an amp. we are geniuses. [p.118]

no one does antimaterialism better than multigazillionaire rock stars. [p.84]

i don't "dress punk", or mod or metal or goth or garage or rockabilly or anything. i don't wake up every morning and put on a music-genre-oriented youth-culture halloween costume. [p.83]

okay, out of context, i am not sure these quotes carry the same panache. at any rate, let me summarize by saying that this book is much better than melody carlson's drivel. or, perhaps i relate more to an angsty outcast random teenage boy protagonist than i do to a popular goody-goody choreographed teenage girl protagonist.