For the record, "After School Special" works well as a title for this book.

Those of you who don’t remember after school specials missed some fairly strange television. Back before cable dominated the landscape and there weren’t more than three networks available for entertainment, after school specials were movies for children.

A child watching them could realistically expect to watch people learn to accept themselves for who they are, work through abuse,  discover uncomfortable truths about their family or any one of a thousand heartrending cliches.

That hypothetical child could also realistically hope to see someone jump out of a second story window while out of their mind on drugs.

Shipp’s book delivers the same combination of over the top emotional situations and bizarre occurrences. The difference being that Shipp is being deliberately over the top whereas the writers of the specials appeared to believe that they were addressing important social issues.

Shipp goes a couple steps further in what he includes. Among his characters: a spoiled, wealthy kid who pretends to be homeless but then can’t figure out how to break it to his girlfriend, a kid with low self-confidence with an amazing talent for making social situations go horribly wrong, and a brilliant girl who chooses to become a professional eater instead of going to college.

Also, a ninja.

Shipp’s writing is professional and often funny. The words feel right for the story.

The only problem I had was more with me than the story. I really don’t enjoy watching people make complete fools out of themselves.

The main character does that a lot.

As such, it’s not really the sort of book I’d seek out, but that’s a personal preference.

People looking for a story that’s sometimes a parody, sometimes strange, and sometimes silly will enjoy it.

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