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5.0 out of 5 stars
Fourth and Last Book in The Black Book Series, Mar 5 2003
By A Customer
For some reason, I always have a knack for buying books out of order, like I did with this one. But when I found "Faster, Faster, Faster" the other day in a used bookstore, I had to buy it, remembering it was one of the titles Amazon.com had recommended to me. (Amazon.com rarely lets me down.) Now, after just finishing this book, I'll certainly be looking for the other three.Anyway, Volume IV takes place in Pompano Beach, Florida, where eleventh-grader Jonah Black currently lives with his sexually liberal mother and scary-but-genius sister, Honey. This book/series is set up to read like a diary with date logs instead of chapters, but, as I've mentioned in other reviews about teen diaries, it's obvious this book/series isn't a real one. For starters, it's too coherent. Conversations and details are written in-depth, which would be nearly impossible to do if you were really writing in a diary. But the first-person viewpoint does create a closeness to Jonah, and the use of AOL chats and e-mails are a nice touch, which most young computer-savvy readers will like. About halfway into the book, Jonah and Honey make a road trip to Pennsylvania to visit their father and his new wife, plus check out dorm rooms at Harvard for Honey. Jonah uses the trip as the perfect opportunity to visit his old school and "save" Sophie O'Brien from herself, an institutionalized girl friend who has been plaguing his mind for a long time. It's no real surprise that he's attracted to her; he's a little out there himself, which is obvious right from the first chapter, where he's daydreaming about her while taking the SATs. Jonah is just your typical spaced-out, horny teenage boy, which should probably appeal to the same crowd. I, however, didn't care much for Jonah, probably because 1) I'm not in this age or gender group, and 2) Jonah and his friends reminded me a lot of the guys I knew back in high school, as well as a few that I know now--and, no, they rarely mature past puberty (though Jonah does mature somewhat by the end of this book). Despite these character flaws I complain about, they are what make this book/series work. It's realistic, truthful, and quite refreshing from most of the other teen books out there. The ending is fairly good as well (Jonah finally discovers who Northgirl999 is), but it does leave you hanging a bit, especially since this is the last book in the series.
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