Lana read and liked babyhippoface's review of Down Sand Mountain:

"I struggled to finish this book, and when I was done, my immediate thought was, "Ugh. I didn't like it." Having said that, it's not horrible. I know, one star says, "HORRIBLE", but for me it was mainly tiresome.

I enjo...more I struggled to finish this book, and when I was done, my immediate thought was, "Ugh. I didn't like it." Having said that, it's not horrible. I know, one star says, "HORRIBLE", but for me it was mainly tiresome.

I enjoyed hearing Dewey's thoughts in the beginning. But then this bizarre scene in Darwin Turkel's bedroom popped up, and I began to feel anxious about what later pages might hold. (And there was a little "sex scene" that was just... erk.) And by the time I was 3/5 of the way through, I mainly wanted Dewey to learn to be a little more, well, "succinct", shall we say. Too much rambling, rambling, rambling, and not enough doing. (There were times when I wanted to yell at the boy, "Shut up with all the talking inside your head and actually SPEAK to someone here!")

My main problem with the book was that there was never enough evidence to convince me of either an intended purpose or audience. Is it about race relations? Eh, there's a little bit there, but not so much. I don't think Dewey actually learned much of anything in this area, except that he didn't like it when he couldn't use the "whites only" bathroom. Not sure he ever crossed the bridge to understanding that those in the Boogerbottom lived with that every day.

Is it about bullying? Well, yes, and no. (Again, I wanted to scream, "Just eat the roll on your way to your table, or stick it in your pocket!!")

Is it about a boy experiencing first love? Um. No. First sexual awakenings, maybe.

It's sort of about all those things but just a little bit of each--not enough about any one of them to deserve the label. I guess it was just about Dewey. Which, now that I think about it, probably was the intended purpose: letting us walk around inside Dewey's head.

But I just wanted out of there.

As to the intended audience, I thought this was kid-lit, and every single bit of it was, except the freaky scenes with Darwin and Darla. Scene with Darwin--completely confusing to your average kid but still weird enough to know that something just wasn't right. Scene with Darla--ew, and completely inappropriate for your average kid. But I doubt the YA audience is going to pick this up, or make it past the first few chapters. Dewey's too young for teens to want to read it. So I'm still confused about what audience it wants to please. I just know it wasn't this one.

(And Darwin was just so freaky. I think he grew up to be Jame Gumb from Silence of the Lambs....)(less) "