Happy Town and Hot Mess

van Eekhout, Greg. Happy Town

October 22, 2024 by HarperCollins

E ARC provided by Edelweiss Plus

Keegan moves to Happy Town, in the Nevada desert, with his mother and step father, Carl, so that both of them can take jobs with the megaconglomerate run by Arlo Corn. The community serves as a hub for the distribution of Happy Town products, which is the biggest online shop in the world. Corn also hopes to eliminate poverty and hunger in his city under the glass dome. Keegan is a little doubtful, but glad that the adults in his life have jobs. He's a bit concerned about school, since the curriculum seems to center largely on the Corn mythos, and seems overly controlling. He does meet Tank, who is always getting in trouble for reading on school transportation instead of listening to the propagandistic messages, and Gloriana, who is so frustrated by the strictures of Happy Town life that she keeps a supply of Happy Town mugs around for the express purpose of smashing! The two spend a lot of time together after school in work opportunities, which serves the purpose of detention. Of course, there is no detention in Happy Town! Keegan starts to notice that there is a lot of advertising being broadcast, especially to the adults, who have implants ("imps") that are inserted into their ears and meld with their brains. First, all of the adults get very enthusiastic about band instruments, then a variety of hates, and then the Happy Town Meat Cramwich, sandwiches crammed full of meat. The first two are a bit odd, but harmless enough. The brainwashing about the Cramwiches, however, is so intense that all of the adults are basically turned into meat craving zombies. The children are not, so Keegan and his two new friends go to Arlo Corn's office to try to bring this to his attention, but find that he is trying to destroy all of the evidence about the Cramwich publicity plan and is attempting to leave town. This leaves Keegan and his "band of plucky youths" to try to figure out how to stop the now ravenous hordes of adults from eating them and wrecking everything in their wake. They align themselves with the Feral Gang of younger children, run by nine-year-old Bobbie Feral. After some misguided attempts to control the zombies (Bobbie has Tank tied to a flagpole to "lure" the adults!), Keegan realizes a way to reset their brains. Will he and the others be able to get to neutralize the threat before becoming Meat Cramwiches crammed full of TWEEN?

Strengths: I love it when a book surprises me, and this one certainly did. I was grooving along with Keegan in Happy Town, watching him settle in to his new school and seeing how he did with his parents when this became a slightly goofy dystopian tale with zombie parents and electric shock dealing Automals! I was just thinking about levels of quirky on my walk this morning. Tween quirky is hard to pull off. You need some goofy names, but they can't be too goofy. The situations have to be somewhat believable. I loved that van Eekhout worked advertising into this; the parallels with social media BEG for this one to be released in paper back so it can be used for class studies! There are the obvious comparisons to other gigantic online retailers, and having the city under a dome pushes it closer to science fiction. I love the cover; it's a great color. I was also glad to see that Keegan was described as being half Indonesian, and to see that once a week his mother would have Indonesian food. 
Weaknesses: I would have loved to know more about life in Happy Town before things went wrong, but for actual tween readers, this is perfect. The stage is set, and action follows quickly. I would love to see some middle grade novels where eutopias hang on for a little longer before going bad. 
What I really think: This goes along beautifully with titles like Laybourne's Sweet, Korman's Masterminds, and Hautman's The Flinkwater Factor. If you haven't looked at van Eekhout's other titles, make sure that you do, especially my favorite, Voyage of the Dogs. I love the idea of Barkonauts! 

Kinney, Jeff. Hot Mess (Diary of a Wimpy Kid #19)

22 October 2024 by Abrams/Amulet

Ohio Digital Libray Copy

Greg's mother Susan hauls the family out to Ruttyneck Island because his Gramma wants a family picture with everyone on the beach. Even though she has stepped up as the head of the family on the strength of her meatball recipe, she's living in a retirement home, and who knows how long she will last, she is 75. (Sigh. At least the pictures of her are decently nondecrepit). Greg just hopes she passes along the sacred meatball recipe before she shuffles off this mortal coil, although he personally WANTS to be a burden to his children when he is old. Off the family goes, with Susan's sisters, who include Cakey, Gretchen, and Veronica, who is a social media influencer along with her dog, Dazzle. There are assorted cousins and uncles as well. The family goes to the beach, and up into a lighthouse, as well as several other activities that are vaguely amusing but don't really support any plot or character development. There is some talk of Susan taking over as the family matriarch, but other than wielding the television remote and planning activities, we don't see her conspiring with Gramma as much as I would like to make this a thrilling tale of family power, because the grandmother has stayed behind. There are family board games, disastrous kitchen experiments, and a family dinner out to Palazzo Pomadoro, where the meatballs taste suspiciously like Gramma's. The police get involved, and everyone decides to head back, and surprise Gramma at her facility for her birthday. It turns out that she sent the family away so she could have some alone time. She's having a birthday party, and afterwards, Greg finds out the secret to her meatballs. 

Strengths: The best Wimpy Kid Books involve vacations, like The Long Haul or The Getaway. Greg doesn't have the opportunity to be pathologically mean to Rowley, and we hear very little about Roderick. There was a good start to a plot about the mother taking over control of the family from the grandmother, and it was interesting to see glimpses of the other family members. Probably in my top five favorites of this franchise, mainly due to Ruttyneck as a setting.
Weaknesses: There are still way too many anecdotes that don't really add anything to the story other than a mild chuckle, and while I had hope for the development of Susan and Gramma's relationship and family position, this was overshadowed by the random stories. Dazzle's plot arc also could have been developed more. 
What I really think: I'll buy a copy of this eventually, but my students aren't as excited about these books as they have been in the past. Too many words. The demographic that used to crave these titles now doesn't want to read anything but graphic novels.