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Jimi & Isaac 5a: The Brain Injury
Jimi and Isaac are rock stars, epic heroes, intellectuals, and loving sons. They are wise and foolish, sublime and earthy. They are middle school boys, stumbling and shoving their way into manhood.
Isaac always knows the answer. Everything is easy for him. But when his dad falls off the roof, Isaac can't help. He can't fix his dad's brain, he can't fix how helpless his mom feels, and he can't stop making things worse.
Isaac needs to learn to wait, and to accept life as it happens. That's not an easy thing for Isaac.
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Book Report My friend Isaac is kind of a jerk and kind of a good guy. When Isaac's dad hurt his brain, Isaac got hurt too. He just didn't know it right away, and then we didn't do a good job helping him, either.
This isn't one of those "happy ever after and everyone gets a cookie" kinds of stories. It's more like real life. Sometimes you don't get a cookie. Sometimes you go hungry.
-Isaac's friend Jimi Peterson.
Isaac always knows the answer. Everything is easy for him. But when his dad falls off the roof, Isaac can't help. He can't fix his dad's brain, he can't fix how helpless his mom feels, and he can't stop making things worse.
Isaac needs to learn to wait, and to accept life as it happens. That's not an easy thing for Isaac.
**********************
Book Report My friend Isaac is kind of a jerk and kind of a good guy. When Isaac's dad hurt his brain, Isaac got hurt too. He just didn't know it right away, and then we didn't do a good job helping him, either.
This isn't one of those "happy ever after and everyone gets a cookie" kinds of stories. It's more like real life. Sometimes you don't get a cookie. Sometimes you go hungry.
-Isaac's friend Jimi Peterson.
116 pages, Paperback
First published December 1, 2014
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149 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
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July 20, 2016I had a few problems with this book.
One: I found the title very misleading. Jimi and Isaac 5a: The Brain Injury. JIMI and Isaac. Yet Jimi was such a minor character in the overall scheme of things that, for a while, I couldn't figure out where he fit in.
Two: the back cover was extremely misleading. The back cover is written up like a quiz, 10 questions, 4 wrong. The test is taken by Jimi, Isaac's friend (Isaac is the main character) and the questions are about the accident that lands Isaac's dad in the hospital. Before I started reading, I thought maybe Jimi was Isaac's dad, and this quiz was part of his recovery, so for a while I was thrown by that.
Three: I found it extremely difficult to connect to Isaac. I think part of this was because for the first quarter or so of the book (and it's a short book, so that's a lot of pages) I was struggling to pin-point his age. I'm still not sure how old he was. Inside the front cover, a summary labels Isaac and Jimi as middle school students, who are normally between the ages of 11 and 13. Then in the early pages comes the comment that in a few months he's getting his learner's permit for driving: 16? Later we learn he's just starting high school: So...14? HOW OLD ARE YOU?! On top of that, as I read his narrative, he just felt SO young. It read like a child in elementary school, which I think also made it hard to connect. I also just found him to be a stale character in general. He didn't change, didn't grow, he just stayed the same slightly undeveloped character he started as.
Four: I just didn't get why this was a book. It had SO much potential to be a beautiful coming-of-age story about a boy coming to terms with a terrible accident. Instead, it fell short. I didn't get a sense of change in Isaac, and when I finished the book, it really didn't feel all that complete to me.
I was extremely disappointed. This story had such a chance to be such a touching story, and it just...didn't quite hit the mark for me.
One: I found the title very misleading. Jimi and Isaac 5a: The Brain Injury. JIMI and Isaac. Yet Jimi was such a minor character in the overall scheme of things that, for a while, I couldn't figure out where he fit in.
Two: the back cover was extremely misleading. The back cover is written up like a quiz, 10 questions, 4 wrong. The test is taken by Jimi, Isaac's friend (Isaac is the main character) and the questions are about the accident that lands Isaac's dad in the hospital. Before I started reading, I thought maybe Jimi was Isaac's dad, and this quiz was part of his recovery, so for a while I was thrown by that.
Three: I found it extremely difficult to connect to Isaac. I think part of this was because for the first quarter or so of the book (and it's a short book, so that's a lot of pages) I was struggling to pin-point his age. I'm still not sure how old he was. Inside the front cover, a summary labels Isaac and Jimi as middle school students, who are normally between the ages of 11 and 13. Then in the early pages comes the comment that in a few months he's getting his learner's permit for driving: 16? Later we learn he's just starting high school: So...14? HOW OLD ARE YOU?! On top of that, as I read his narrative, he just felt SO young. It read like a child in elementary school, which I think also made it hard to connect. I also just found him to be a stale character in general. He didn't change, didn't grow, he just stayed the same slightly undeveloped character he started as.
Four: I just didn't get why this was a book. It had SO much potential to be a beautiful coming-of-age story about a boy coming to terms with a terrible accident. Instead, it fell short. I didn't get a sense of change in Isaac, and when I finished the book, it really didn't feel all that complete to me.
I was extremely disappointed. This story had such a chance to be such a touching story, and it just...didn't quite hit the mark for me.
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December 19, 2014Kirkus "Star" review. Nominated for Kirkus Prize. www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/ph...
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