Book Review: Middle School, the Worst Years of My Life 

By James Patterson 

5 Stars

This novel represents a wide variety of events that occur during middle school, such as bullying, a difficult principal, and rivalries. A boy named Rafe tries to navigate through these times while dealing with hard times at home. The book also has an amazing amount of art visuals within the pages and on the cover. With all this imagery and hilarious content, James Patterson does an excellent job at explaining what middle school is like with his trusty main protagonist of the novel, who is also one of the funniest characters I have ever read about. Rafe really knows how to make the reader's laugh! He is also incredibly artistic, which he has in common with the author, James Patterson. While I was reading, I wished I was more like Rafe. Just like the character represents in the novel, illustrating your emotions about school to match your perceptions is the best way to cope instead of diving head-first into solutions like I always found myself doing all throughout my own time in middle school. Furthermore, Rafe has a very clear perspective of representing both his negative and positive perceptions through his art skills. The comedy is the best thing about the novel, in my opinion. All of those jokes made the book a total page-turner. James Patterson's ideas even influenced some of my own. Being a comedy-seeker myself, making jokes about difficult times in order to help me not sweat it so much is a great way to be resilient. Rafe is exactly the character who represents that fact. Overall, I strongly recommend this novel as it is hilarious and very entertaining! 

Reviewed by Rameen 

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