Jeremy Fink and the Meaning of Life

Hard to get through at some points, but with an ending that makes up for it, this book is probably the deepest and most profound novel ever. It follows the path of a almost thirteen-year-old boy and his best friend as they go on a quest that will lead them to some surprising conclusions about the meaning of life, or why we are here. They meet some odd people along the way, and gow up in their own different ways. I would recommend this book to anyone who knows that sometimes books can get boring, but you are usually rewarded if you perservere through the boring parts.

I had nothing to listen to on tape for my long daily commute, so, in desperation, I picked up Jeremy Fink from the children's audio section of the public library. I got hooked into the story quickly and realized soon that listening to the book on tape was too slow for me. Jeremy Fink was a book I could have pulled from our fall book fair, but I passed it by. I ended up getting a copy for the library just so I could read it.



Here's the plot: Jeremy's father died when Jeremy was a little boy. Just before Jeremy turns thirteen, he receives a box in the mail from his father, a book labeled “The Meaning of Life.” Unfortunately, there are no keys, so Jeremy and his best friend set off in search of the keys and the meaning of life.

Jeremy Fink and the MOL is an okay book. Some of the quirks in the characters seemed like they were trying to hard to be “weird”. And, sometimes, especially in the beginning, Jeremy's line of thoughts weren't like a tweleve-year-old boy's thoughts(Its was either that or it seemed, just like with the quirks, that they were trying too hard to sound like an almost-teenage boy's thoughts)..
Also, the community service/security guard thing was kinda dumb(even though it was kind of necessary..), Especially the write-your-observations-in-notebook thing. And the emphasis on Lizzy being either: A) Girly or B) becoming more girl-ish was annoying.
It was also kind of annoying because it didn't start to get good ‘til I was about 200 pages in.