The New Rules of High School

Publishers Weekly

Max, a senior, makes excellent grades and achieves everything he tries. But something is not right-in his relationship with the "perfect" girlfriend and with himself. In a starred review, PW called this "an especially mature and incisive look inside the heart of a teenager who believes that he might already have seen the best that life and love have to offer." Ages 14-up. (Sept.) Copyright 2004 Reed Business Information.

Children's Literature

Max Cadwell is at the end of his junior year in high school. It seems like he has everything he needs and is exactly the person he should be. Suddenly he decides to break up with his supposedly perfect girlfriend, and he is not even sure why. Max makes a couple of new friends—Eleanor the mysterious girl, Lydia the outgoing freshmen and Jill St. John the radical environmentalist. As the editor of his school paper, Max begins to learn about the different types of people in his high school. The book follows Max through his senior year with a brief epilogue. This book is a wonderful account of the emotional changes a sixteen-year-old can end up dealing with. Max has a pretty normal life by most accounts, but he still struggles with certain issues. While the writing style is directed at a slightly younger audience, the topics of college, relationships, sex and alcohol are more directed at preteens. 2003, Viking/Penguin Group,
— Caroline Haugen

VOYA

Max Caldwell has always done what other people expected him to do. When readers meet him at the end of his junior year, he is a straight-A student, the captain of the debate team, and the newly appointed editor of the school paper. Nevertheless, starting with his nondecision to break up with his "perfect" girlfriend, Cindy, Max begins to challenge his own, and everyone else's, assumptions about the direction his life should take. Throughout his senior year, he strives to make unexpected and sometimes ill-advised choices-decisions that land him in trouble with his friends and his folks. In the end, he comes to the underwhelming conclusion that breaking out of your own skin can just land you right back in it. With dry wit and a pitch-perfect ear for dialogue, Nelson gifts readers with a languid narrator whose unpredictable choices nevertheless drive the story. It is not an ambitious book. The weightier issues of school violence, peer relations, and abuse are never broached, making way for after-school jobs, first sexual encounters, and partying with freshmen. Although nothing earth-shattering happens to Max along the way, readers, along with Max, feel a little more comfortable in their own skins for having gone on the journey. His familiar story is unfamiliar for its lack of trauma and will resonate with readers struggling to find meaning in the everyday-ness of their everyday lives. VOYA Codes: 4Q 3P J S (Better than most, marred only by occasional lapses; Will appeal with pushing; Junior High, defined as grades 7 to 9; Senior High, defined as grades 10 to 12). 2003, Viking, 244p,
— Angelina Benedetti

School Library Journal

Gr 8 Up-Max heads toward his senior year with everything he could ever want: he's been named editor-in-chief of the newspaper and debate-team captain, he has great grades, and a beautiful girlfriend. Life gets a little out of whack when the overachiever breaks up with Cindy for no apparent reason. The taste of freedom is sweet for a while but things get complicated when an overbearing, boy-crazy freshman throws herself at him at a party and conveniently lands a job as columnist on the school paper. Her controversial column, "The New Rules of High School," puts the Owl's popularity over the top, forcing Max into an uncomfortable mentorship. As the year progresses, this relationship improves as other friendships suffer through Max's growing pains. Largely dialogue driven, the story evolves from various characters' interactions and conversations with Max. His younger sister, Drea, is the information maven, not only for her own grade but for the high school as well, and she takes on an amusing role as her brother's romantic advisor. Whether Max is grieving over his breakup or testing the waters of singledom, readers are empathetic to his emotional vulnerability. The novel involves a wide variety of high school types-the punks, nerds, jocks, etc.-and successfully reflects the ambivalence in which they coexist. The teenage voice is dead-on, and Max pulls readers by the hand, right into his world, without missing a beat.-Vicki Reutter, Cazenovia High School, NY Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information.

Kirkus Reviews

Narrator Max Caldwell is editor-in-chief of the student newspaper, and in his account of his last year in high school, his voice sounds appropriately like a journalist. He reports on what he does and who he encounters, leaving it to the reader to piece together why Max is sabotaging his own success. Dropping his "perfect" girlfriend, jeopardizing his closest friendship, and drinking too much are a few of the ways Max copes with his demanding family life and Ivy League goals. Nelson skillfully reveals Max's character and problems in "show-don't-tell" style, painting a convincing portrait of suburban high-school students and their social and sexual concerns. Even secondary characters like Max's younger sister have a realistic complexity. Readers will recognize, if not themselves, fellow students like Max who lose their bearings while trying to fulfill everyone else's expectations. (Fiction. YA)