[.uk] America's Report Card

a great, funny novel--perfect summer reading:
I've always been a big fan of John McNally's work--Troublemakers and The Book of Ralph are personal favorites, so I eagerly awaited America's Report Card. I wasn't disappointed! Thrills, chills, and spills abound in this action-packed page-turner. I couldn't put it down during my morning subway commute, and you won't be able to either.

Blown Away:
"Paranoia strikes deep ... into your life it will creep" - Buffalo Springfield Enough other reviewers have summarized the plot of this novel that for me to do the same would be akin to writing cliff notes to cliff notes. (It would bore both of us and won't tell you anything about the book that you probably don't already know by now.) I will say, however, that I found this book extremely compelling, and I was hooked into it from the first few pages. It's a dark and wonderful paranoid fantasy filled with enough social satire and black humor to make it simultaneously hilarious and deeply poignant. Normally, I am not one to engage in or encourage conspiracy theories, but the unprecedented amount of secrecy that our current administration insists on is enough to encourage some paranoid thoughts even in the most well-adjusted of citizens. John McNally does a masterful job of pulling those disquieting thoughts out into the open and shoving them in your face in a manner that makes you laugh, applaud, and shake your head in disbelief all at the same time. It is no small feat to have conspiracy theories (some plausible, some wildly implausible) drive so many characters in one book. It is even more difficult to do this while preserving reader sympathy for the essential humanity of the characters in question. I positively adored this book from start to finish and can honestly say that it's one of the best books that I've read in the last five years. On a small side note, I must take exception to the review that stated "McNally ... fails when it comes to writing female characters" and that the "conversations between his main male and female characters are so clearly male written". On the contrary, I found myself frequently surprised that he succeeded in nailing the female perspective so well. Clearly, that review was written by a man. (*wink*)

An antidote for test obsession:
America's Report Card is an incisive, funny look at a nation that's gone mad and is keeping imperfect score of the process. John McNally's droll work should be required reading for parents who obsess about their children's test scores-which means it should be a bestseller.

John Mcnally: America's Grader:
McNally is to literature what Michael Moore is to documentaries: both have a keen sense of our nation's zeitgeist, and neither is afraid to probe beneath and search for truths most of us gloss over or ignore. While you may think that you have not taken a test in years, McNally's great book-with biting humor and acumen-delivers the trenchant realization that, perhaps, each of us is being tested without informed or conscious consent. Some readers may consider America's Report Card satire; others may call it allegorcal political fiction. Read it, and decide for youself. But whatever you call it, you have to call it a great book!

Good all-around book:
The main characters in America's Report Card are interesting and memorable, even though I finished the book 6 months ago occasionally I laugh or cringe about something they did. McNally intertwines their different lives into a complex and uplifting relationship, like he did in The Book of Ralph (a great book). You see it here with Charlie, a young adult with a master's degree who is grading tests, and Jainey, a 17-year-old coming from a dysfunctional family 100s of miles away. They are both on the down-and-out, and you can't help but root for them as they are reaching out for something and they find each other, in the midsts of a possible government conspiracy. America's Report Card was engaging and read quickly because of McNally's natural writing style. The book captures America's paranoia with the government and questions our testing culture, full of satire. I recommend it for someone looking for a novel that is an entertaining novel to read, yet takes on consequential topics.