The Every Boy by Dana Adam Shapiro

A treasure this pirate has discovered from BOOKSALE! I got this book for only 60 pesos. 

There was a silver seal inside that says "LIBRARY OF PAUL DEBONIS". At first I thought it was an award-kind-of stamp like the Printz but I searched the internet and it wasn't. Also, there weren't anything relevant enough that justifies whether this book belonged to the few Paul Debonis' that I found. Very mysterious. Very intriguing.

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Henry Every has had a very complicated childhood. His relationship with his nothing-short-of stubborn and stern of a father can be described as 'difficult'.

One day, he dies.

His mother discovers a ledger and hands it to his father. This ledger contains the life he has lived and what influenced his untimely death.

EVERYone must read this philosophical experience of an insightful boy who died just when he's starting to discover the world.

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One of the monumental quotes of this book contains the idiom 'can't see the forest for the trees' which means 'not being able to see the bigger picture'.

What a melancholic, complicated, confusing, coming-of-age experience! I tell you, this is a heavily jargoned book. I hated and loved it but mostly hated it because the momentum of my reading was continuously disturbed as I fumble for my lifesaver, my dictionary.

I don't understand how cruel authors can be. Mr. Shapiro tried so hard to make The Every Boy a literary piece that it got me wondering whether the book would even be considered a literary piece. He deliberately killed his own protagonist the exact moment it was becoming a happy-ending. He just had to serve us, loyal readers, a bitter aftertaste.

Though from the very beginning, we knew the boy we are reading about is dead. Yet I rooted for him. So much feelings. So much investment. This book is like a bad love affair that scarred you so much you're still in love with it.


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