Middle School, The Worst Years of My Life (Middle School, 1)

I was reading a little into the book when I felt, "oh god, another stupid rip off of Diary of a Wimpy Kid." Well I continued to read and found it surprisingly good. It starts off with Rafe trying to break all the rules of his middle schol and he has a secret crush on the pretty girl. Anyway, he get's all his advice from "Silent Leo". He is horribly bullied by the Killer and he winds up losing his book to Miller the Killer. Miller takes Rafe's book which deplicts all the things he's done and will to break all the rules of hte code of conduct and dress book. Rafe decides to steal Carl's stash of soda and sell them for a dollar. Rafe and Carl (aka Bear and engaged to his mother) hate each other. Bear is a lazy man who sponges off his mom and gets her to work double shift at the restaruant so that he can just sleep on the sofa.

Things happen to the ultimate and acme part: Miller sends the mom a package (the rest of Rafe's book) and Carl the bear haas it. The adults begin to argue about what to do about Rafe when Carl pushed the mom and she falls. He get's arrested, but she doesn't press charges. She does however finally realize, he is no good and she kicks him out of their lives. She later goes to the school to discuss Rafe's suspension and Mrs. Donatello (the school counselor and artist herself) suggests Rafe's style of learning should be best at an art school.

Everybody wins and Rafe survives 6th grade. Yeah, he has to re-do 6th grade during the summer but at least he survived middle school.

His mother named Rafe for Rafealle and his departed brother is Leo for Leonardo DiVinci and Georgia is for Georgia O'Keefe. They are all artists. His mom always wanted to be an artist. His best and imaginary friend, "silent Leo" was his departed brother.

The ending was mroe serious and dealt with more serious subjects matters. That was the surprise and it was nice. There was also a plug for James Patterson's other book, Dangerous Days of Daniel X. xp