Ratings

Content Ratings based on a 0-5 scale where
0 = no objectionable content and
5 = an excessive or disturbing level of content

Guide to Rating System

LANGUAGE

VIOLENCE

SEXUAL CONTENT

ADULT THEMES

Ratings Explanation

Language: “Hurts like hell” is used three times.  “Don’t make me open a can of whup-ass on you, boy.”  Wuss is used a handful of times.  Godforsaken is used once.  “Felt hot as the hinges of hell”.  Phrases that elude to strong language are used like, “mighty hot language”.  There is a lot of talk about farts and “gassers”.  “He let out the biggest, nastiest gasser you can imagine.”  “Teach me….?  To fart?”

Violence: Joey’s dad beats him.  Rusty and Joey shoot guns, first at cans, then at squirrels.  They kill the squirrels.  Joey shoots and accidentally kills the family cat. The boys do a prank that causes a car accident and Joey’s sister dies.  Rusty finds Joey with a gun stuck in his mouth ready to shoot himself.  Joey’s dad is aggressive and mean.  He yells and beats his kids.  Joey and Rusty cut their knuckles and hand to share blood when they promise to keep secrets.

Sexual Content: Joey takes off his pants and underwear to fart in the lake.  A fish bites his “privates”.  He is sore and bruised.

Adult Themes: Child abuse is referred to throughout this book.  Two girls in the book cheat on a final exam.  Because of a car accident, the family members deal with the death of a family member.  The secrets and lies involving the accident lead to a 13-year-old boy getting drunk and “puking his guts out”.  Later, the same boy puts a gun in his mouth and attempts suicide.  The mother and children leave the abusive father.

Synopsis

Rusty Cooper moves into a new town and makes friends with the boy next door, Joey Banks.  Joey’s adventurous nature gets the boys into all sorts of mischief.  Usually the pranks are harmless, like putting bugs in drinks, hiding frogs in drawers or replacing the goldfish that keep dying.  Joey lives in constant fear of his father’s beatings and always makes Rusty “swear to howdy” that he will not tell anyone what they do and then seal it with their blood.  When one prank goes horribly wrong and ends in tragedy, Rusty struggles with keeping the secrets that are darkening his life.

My first impression as I started reading this book was that it was a boy’s dream book full of potty humor and pranks on sisters.  Which personally I don’t find amusing at all, but a whole chapter on farting would probably be very funny to most adolescent boys.   I’m sure my younger brothers would find very amusing the many pranks played on the older sisters in this book.  As the book continues though, the pranks and adventures become more serious and troubling.  The boys are doing bad things, lying and keeping secrets to hide what they do.  Child abuse, guns, death, under-age drinking and suicide are very serious topics that, I think, require parental guidance and discussion.  This book is not a pleasure reading type of book for kids. I found it quite disturbing.  I would recommend keeping this book to high school level readers.