Enchanting Review: I Am A Genius Of Unspeakable Evil and I Want To Be Your Class President

I AM A GENIUS OF UNSPEAKABLE EVIL AND I WANT TO BE YOUR CLASS PRESIDENT
JOSH LIEB
YA Humor
RAZORBILL
ISBN# 978-1-59514-240-5
304 pages
$15.99 ($20.00 CAN)
eBook/Print - Available 10/15/09

Rating: 5 Enchantments

Oliver Watson lives in Omaha Nebraska and he is both an eight grader and a criminal mastermind who runs a vast organization dedicated to the humiliation and punishment of those he feels have wronged him.

Tatiana Lopez is known by Oliver as the meanest girl in school. Oliver seems to have a bit of a crush on Tatiana.

The entire story is told by Oliver so sometimes events may be distorted by what Oliver would like to present. Oliver is nominated for class president by Tatiana and at first he declines, but later changes his mind when he claims he sees an opportunity to annoy or diminish his dad by running and doing easily what his dad worked hard for as a student. Oliver manipulates, threatens and bribes his way to an unopposed election. His dad expresses his pity that poor Oliver won’t know the success of truly running and winning an election. Oliver decides to manipulate a little more and sponsors a ‘rival’ through more bribery, manipulation and threats. He hires a campaign manager for his rival through his criminal organization. This is to ensure his final victory. Things don’t go quite the way Oliver plans due to the his mother and his campaign volunteers led by Tatiana.

This book is great. I really enjoyed the scenes where Oliver acts as though Randy, his fellow student and rival for class president, scares or hurts him. Each time Randy tries to console or help Oliver, Oliver acts as if Randy is threatening him or hitting him, or demanding his money. Oliver takes great pride in being an evil genius. In his efforts to be President, Oliver never truly plans what he will do if he actually wins the election. I like how the author shows the inconsistencies in Oliver’s story about himself. Oliver claims that he does everything completely legally and then goes on to describe incidents like having paid henchmen use blow darts to inject drugs into unsuspecting bullies. This is definitely illegal even if it allows Oliver to take revenge on the bully.

This is Josh Lieb’s debut novel. Josh Lieb is the Emmy-winning producer of The Daily Show with Jon Stewart. He worked on The Simpsons and Newsradio.


Kathy Johnson
ENCHANTING REVIEWS
July 2009

ENTR@PMENT: A HIGH SCHOOL COMEDY IN CHAT
M. SPOONER
YA Humor
Margaret K. McElderry Books
ISBN# 1-4169-5889-4
320 pages
$16.99
HARDCOVER—Available June 2, 2009

Rating: 5 Enchantments

Gothling, Annie in RL (real life), is suffering because she lost her boyfriend to her best friend. Or her newly former best friend.

Big J is a fickle guy who moves from relationship to relationship. He does have skills with computers, the internet and writes poetry.

Gothling decides that all boys are alike and she wants to share her cruelly won knowledge with her two friends Ms. T and bliss4u. She tries to convince both Ms. T and bliss4u that their boyfriends would easily cheat on them too and makes a bet with them that if they were to pretend to go away for a while and then create new internet identities the boys would soon forget about their promises and fall for their new masks. Gothling asks for Big J’s help in setting up a chat room and drawing BoBoy and chessman into the trap.

I really enjoyed this book because it was funny and reminded me of the Shakespeare comedys. The unique format was what allowed me to believe that two girls could fool their boyfriends best friend about who they are. The dialogue was great and I enjoyed the malapropisms. It did take me a while to get used to the chat and IM format. The author very skillfully inserted description in the chat dialogue. The characters feel real but it is important to remember that the person behind the internet ID could be any age, any gender and from anywhere, and M. Spooner reminds the reader of that a few times. Gothling remains true to her character to the end with her pessimism and biting sense of humor. She does grow also but I won’t spoil the ending for you. The cover is very attractive and I had to fight off my daughter and several of the teens at our teen center because they wanted a look at the book. My favorite part is when Big J changes his id to Alfonso and starts falling for Gothling. She thinks he is kidding at first then starts to get interested and asks him why he never wrote a poem for her. At one point she asks him if he thinks she is a potted plant. It is funny because at the same time as she is trying to get him to write her a poem, she is still suspicious about why he is being ‘nice’ to bliss4u and Ms. T. She asks if she should come by and pound some sense into him. When she finds out that BoBoy and chessman blackmailed him into being nice by threatening to quit the chatroom she says that is totally out of line. This seems a little hypocritical since she essentially tricked the girls into their part of the chatroom but she doesn’t see the irony.

The author, M. Spooner IMs from Logan, Utah and can be reached at www.mspooner.net

Kathy Johnson
ENCHANTING REVIEWS
June 2009