General overview: male senior in suburban New Jersey dreams of going to Julliard for theatre. His father cuts him off and says he won’t pay for his school. Kid fights back and with his friends gets the money from him in other ways. It ends all happy and good, by the way. This book had its good points and bad. Let’s start with the bad. It’s like DUH! Of course the Dude is gay. Male, theatre, wants to go to Julliard? You could spot that a mile away!!! Things worked out a little too easily, sort of. And money is the hardest thing about going to Julliard? What about the actual audition? Or maybe that was a good thing that something different was new. In TV shows all the time, the audition is the hardest part because families in TV always have the money (see: Party of Five, Everwood, etc…). Plus, this book took place in the early eighties and things back then weren’t nearly has hard as they are now. Probably the best thing about this book was the group of friends Dude had. It was really really varied from jocks to ex cheerleaders and other drama nerds as well as just nerds who want to be accepted. I thought the jock was a bit of a stretch, but for some reason it worked. The annoying nerd at the beginning of the book ended up being my favourite character in the whole thing. This book did a fairly good job balancing having enough money to have fun but still make it real at the same time. I was unsure of the ages of everyone, but that kind of didn’t matter. For a young adult novel, this one held its own really well.

Grade: C+