Author: Stefan Koski
 Publisher: Hats Off Books (February 28, 2005)
 ISBN: 1587364115
 Category: Humor

The following review was contributed by: Jennifer Murray

 
  I find it rather fascinating how memory works - how a smell or a
 comment will quickly transport you back to a particular moment in
 time. While traveling through a day in the life of [at the time] high
 school sophomore Stefan Koski, I found myself remembering things from
 my double digit years ago time in high school. The intense dislike of
 having to drag yourself out of bed before daybreak to the organized
 chaos of the pre first bells socializing. The count down to lunch
 [that always seemed to whiz by] to the afternoon countdown of being
 able to mark off one more day gotten through.

Koski paints such a  vivid imagery that I could almost smell that distinct but yet still
 unidentifiable smell that always permeated the cafeteria of my high
 school.

 I feel he summed up the "adult" social order that you have to
 start figuring out in high school when he said, "...Still, sometimes
 you can't help but think back...thinking about when things were
 better.

Behind all of it is some kind of desire, I'm sure of it.
Some kind of weird social pressure to reach a level of status that we
will never be able to attain.... No matter what you do, you'll always
be a step lower than you wanted."
 
 Overall, I truly enjoyed this book, especially the whole section on
 gym and the various ways to maim and bruise your fellow classmates.
 Way more fun that my memories of running "because it's good for you"
 and the torture of a few weeks of square dancing to give you
 interaction with the opposite sex and not have to "dress out" as we
 called it.

 Controlled aggression with adult supervision makes loads
 of sense to me - you've got to get it out one way or another or
 trouble just ensues.
 
 My really only complaint of the book was the Miscellaneous Philosophy
 sections. I found them to be a bit jarring in the overall view of the
 book, with the ones from lunch on to feel less like sucker punches
 from left field that the earlier ones.

 I do find the miscellaneous  observations to be rather thought provoking in a P.J. O'Rourke meets Dave Barry sort of way, but I found myself getting so interested in
 the period by period stories that I was beginning to dislike their
 intrusion. I would have stuck them in an appendix for them to be
 savored on their own. They reminded me fondly of the random
 pontification tangents that my friends and I would go on [and still
 do, when life permits]. You could never quite figure out exactly how
 you got on that topic, but they were always insightful, in a skewed
 sort of way. I hope to see more from this young, freshman author in
 the not too distant future.