Beat the Band [Hardcover]

The boys from Swim the Fly by Don Calame are back! Beat the Band isn't exactly a sequel to Swim the Fly, but it does have the same characters. Once I heard about Calame's second book I had to have it. While the first book by Calame was narrated by Matt, Beat the Band has Coop's tale to tell. It isn't essential to read Swim the Fly, but after reading Beat the Band, you'll want to. Both books are hilarious.

It's tenth grade and the boys are upping the ante on their juvenile bets. For the summer, it was to see a real live naked girl. This school year? Cooper's aiming to tag the bases. Coop wants to hook up with model-looking Prudence Nash on the 10th grade health class project...but he's paired with the infamous "Hot Dog" Helen Harriwick. In the eyes of the teens at Lower Rockville High, this is social suicide. So he does what every teen in the depths of loserdom does to reclaim a bit of cool.. forms a band. If Matt, Cooper, and Sean's band, Arnold Murphy's Bologna Dare, wins the Battle of the Bands, they will rocket to cool in no time. Despite the fact none of them can play an instrument, they've never rehearsed, and they have no idea what they're doing. But then Coop spends more time with Helen and discovers what he was missing.

I praised Swim the Fly for its combination of humor with heart. It's good to see Beat the Band doesn't fail in this department. Once again, the characters are somewhat rude and juvenile, the humor might be crude, and the adults in the novel might as well as be teens themselves, but what Calame does so well is make it all work wonderfully. I enjoyed the character development in the first book, Beat the Band gives readers another taste of that. Once again, I have to compare it to Judd Apatow movies - high on crude, laughs, and heart.

Cooper is very juvenile and his POV provides the typical boy viewpoint towards girls and sex. It reminded me of a Buffy the Vampire Slayer quote actually.

Cordelia: Well, does looking at guns make you wanna have sex?
Xander: I'm 17. Looking at linoleum makes me wanna have sex.

But as Cooper gets to actually know Helen and Prudence, his viewpoint shifts to something less superficial and caveman like. He sees woman as more than sex objects - as much as you can expect a teen boy to change. A reader can find the humor in Cooper's utter clueless nature and rejoice when he finally gets some sense.

Don Calame takes the staples of high school comedy - Battle of the Bands, being partnered with a social outcast, teen boys' hormones -- and injects new life into them. The band antics are hysterical and terribly misguided. One of my favorite chapters was when the boys chose the outfits for their "look"...and ended up with three completely different looks, resulting in looking like surreal Village People castoffs. I won't reveal the rest of the funny situations in detail - golf shop antics, band practice and more but trust me, you'll laugh.

The situations may be crude and not for all, but these boys, despite their clueless nature, are oddly lovable and Beat the Band delivers beat after beat of the funny.

Beat The Band is a must read for anyone who loved Swim The Fly, or anyone who likes funny contemporary fiction featuring very normal male characters. Both books center around a trio of friends: Matt, Cooper, and Sean. Matt was the main character of Swim The Fly, and Cooper gets top billing for Beat The Band. It was a gutsy move to feature Cooper as the narrator. He came off as an immature, insensitive jerk in Swim The Fly and that personality carries over into Beat The Band. Cooper thinks of virtually nothing but sex. His only other focus in life is to improve his reputation at school - mostly so he can get girls.

Cooper is basically the ring leader for his group of friends. He's the one who comes up with dumb ideas and cajoles his friends to come along. Now, he's convinced them to enter into the school Battle Of The Bands contest. Never mind that they're terrible players and have to cheat their way in - all that matters is that they're sure to win, become rock-star gods, and have girls running at them tossing their clothes off. Cooper's plan to become Mr. Cool suffers a setback when he's matched up with Hot Dog Helen to do a semester long project in health class on methods of birth control.

The book is hard to read at times simply because Cooper is such a jerk. Not that he's a bad person, but he's fulfills every stereotype of a hormone-crazed teenager. His constantly sexually-charged thoughts were annoying and I disliked his tendency to throw people under the bus to further his own popularity. But I admire Don Calame for having the guts to give us a difficult protagonist. Matt, the narrator of Swim The Fly, was basically a sweet boy - not so good as to be unbelievable but still had a strong moral compass. Calame really has to work to make the reader like Cooper. I enjoyed seeing Cooper grow throughout the book. I liked the little hints coming from his conscience - we realize that he does know better. The transformation of his character wasn't as well-developed as I would have liked. I thought it happened too quickly. It made sense given the plot, but a few more scenes showing why he was changing would have made the book feel more real.

Both Swim The Fly and Beat The Band have excellent adult characters. Cooper's dad is an example of how not to parent. It is easy to understand why Cooper is the girl-crazy boy that he is. His dad is crass and irresponsible. He's the one who convinces Cooper to cheat to enter the band contest and takes the band to crazy levels. I really disliked him at first, but later came to feel bad for him. He's out-of-work and feels useless. Living vicariously through Cooper takes him back to the days when he was cool and fun.

Beat The Band was not quite as funny as Swim The Fly for me. I never had the urge to call up my parents and my husband to read out loud hilarious scenes as I did with Swim The Fly. Still, there were numerous story lines that had me shaking with laughter with tears welling up in my eyes. Beat The Band is also not quite as poignant as Swim The Fly. Even though Cooper changes a lot in this story, he's just not as sweet a guy as Matt. But toward the end there were several "Aww...that's so sweet!" moments.

I really enjoyed Beat The Band. Even though it's technically a sequel, it stands on its own and can be read without reading Swim The Fly. I'd suggest reading Swim The Fly first though. You'll get a lot more out of the characters and the story. I sure hope Calame writes Sean's story next!

Rating: 4 / 5

"You won't be sorry; I promise... this is going to be epic!" -Cooper Redmond... Famous last words, yes? Maybe, but that all depends on how you look at it. Even when you lose, sometimes you win something much better.

Although in the same vein of funny as SWIM THE FLY with most of the same cast, BEAT THE BAND (Swim The Fly #2) is a completely different story. To be honest the fact that this second book is written from Cooper's pov had me going in a bit weary from the start. Coop's brazen and often overly juvenile personality, albeit hysterical at times, made him a much less likable character in comparison to Matt, who was just so darn endearing as he narrated his way through book one. But I have to say those concerns were completely a non issue. I'm not saying there weren't some blatantly foul displays of inappropriate male adolescents from Mr. Cooper, because there most definitely were, more than a few and they were laugh-out-loud funny. But we also find there is a lot more to Coop than fart jokes and double entendres in this second installment. Fortunately author Don Calame saw fit to introduce us to the many layers of Cooper Redmond; as he navigates his way through embarrassing Sex Ed Health Class assignments, the school pariah, an out of work dad, hawt mean girls, his first kiss, the battle of the bands and his conscious.

This is a definite equal opportunity series that teens and adults of both genders will relate to and enjoy. I'm a 32 year old mom of 2 boys and I loved both books. I highly recommend the audio versions, which have provided countless hours of entertainment and distraction for me on the evil treadmill. Narrator Nick Podehl expertly gives a voice and a very distinct individuality to each character. I really hope Calame plans to round out the group and put out a third book from Sean's pov.

› Go to Amazon.com to see all 8 reviews  4.6 out of 5 stars