The Thing I Didn’t Know I Didn’t Know Book 1, Russel Middlebrook: The Futon Years by Brent Hartinger
I requested The Thing I Didn’t Know I Didn’t Know because it was by the same author who wrote Geography Club. I’d never read the book, but I’d seen the movie and really enjoyed it.
Usually I don’t like books with young protagonists, owing to my singular hatred of anybody under the age of 25, and issue I’ve struggled with just about my entire life. But I did really like Geography Club.
Thus the thing I should have known. I haven’t been able to finish this book because I can not stand the protag. He has that John Green style over-analytical naivety that just sets my fucking teeth on edge.
Maybe it’s jealousy because I was never the kind of person who felt safe enough in my own home and with my own family to be that adorkably lost all the time, but God Damnit I can’t take it.
Somebody else would probably love this book. Somebody who enjoys painfully innocent young men who don’t actually get hurt so much as they learn deep lessons. Lessons the reader themselves probably learned or are about to learn just as gently and sweetly. I can’t take it.
1 star.