I Am Not Joey Pigza (Joey Pigza Books) Review

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(More customer reviews)A good author has the ability to piss off their fans. Pissing off fans is a delicate art, though. On the one hand, if you can emotionally engage your readers to the point where they are so invested in your characters that they consider them to be real people then you know you're a pretty darn good writer. On the other hand, you always run the risk of losing those same fans if they feel you're being needlessly cruel to the fictional people they've grown to know and love. "I Am Not Joey Pigza" walks this tightrope and I've heard strong opinions about it from all quarters. Some people are furious with what Gantos has done to Joey in this book. Other people just see it as a continuation of the stories they've already grown to know and love. To my own mind, this is one of those books where kids will read the story on one level and adults on another. William Faulkner once said of writing to, "Kill your darlings". Well nobody dies in this book, but Gantos definitely puts his hero, and his readers' emotions through the wringer. The result is probably one of the smartest little ole books about the nature of forgiveness I've read in a very long time.
Joey's been doing pretty well for a while now. He's taking his meds for his ADD regularly. His mom has been happy and he likes his newest teacher at school. Heck, things would be perfect if it weren't for his no good father Carter Pigza. One day Carter arrives at Joey's front door with some crazy news. He's won the lottery, has changed his name to Carter Heinz, and now he wants Joey and his mom to join him in his newest moneymaking scheme. Suddenly the boy is ripped out of his happy existence into "Carter's" nutty world. Joey is renamed Freddy Heinz and all the progress he's made is put to the test. At the heart of this story, however, is Carter's search for Joey's forgiveness and Joey's struggle to figure out what it means to forgive someone who is truly repentant and, at the same time, truly dangerous to be around.
Bear in mind that as I write this review the only other Joey Pigza book I've ever read was the first one in the series, Joey Pigza Swallowed the Key. From this I can determine a couple things. 1. I'm fairly certain that this book stands perfectly well on its own. You may have missed some action in the past, but it doesn't really matter. Gantos is quick to bring you up to speed. 2. Not having seen how well Joey was doing, I don't have the sense of indignation that some people have regarding what he's going through in this book. Gantos did originally intend the Joey Pigza books to total three in number, but Joey kept talking to him. Kept growing and changing in his head. Now people are mad because Gantos listened to that little voice and went where it took him.
Adults read this book and what they see is a kid suffering abuse. A child yanked out of the educational system just when he was doing well. Who comes this close to spending his days getting hit by a paint gun for money. But because we're reading all this through the filter of Joey's mind, a lot of this stuff sounds great to your average kid. Who wouldn't want to get to stay home from school making crazy concoctions in the kitchen? The reason that this book doesn't read like a long lengthy tract of negligence is because Joey's voice is so doggone upbeat. He has a vague sense that things aren't going well, but like the kids who will be reading this book he's clearer on the specifics than the overall picture. If you want a children's book that mires itself in depression, there are plenty out there to chose from. How much harder and rarer it is to find the same thing done with a cheery spring in its step.
Much of this is due to the writing itself. Gantos is king and unquestioned ruler of the one-sentence zinger. "She opened her mouth and a row of hissy little sounds sputtered out as if she were spraying perfume on my words to make them nicer." Or when one man is described as being built, "like a bloated bowling pin covered with see-through hair that stood out the same as on a plastic bottle brush." In terms of the writing, one objection I heard regarding the book was the fact that Joey sometimes talks like someone much older than himself. For example, when his dad is discussing second chances and changing yourself, Joey has the wherewithal to ask, "But what if your second chance ruins my first chance?" This was never something I objected to, though. Some authors take you out of the story when their characters start talking like 50-year-old adults. Others, like Gantos, get away with it by the skin of their teeth. Maybe this is because you can interpret this book as being written in the future by a grown and intelligent Joey. That at least is how I prefer to look at it.
The connections Joey's dad draws between karma and winning the lottery is not all that different from the premise behind, My Name Is Earl. Of course, the difference here is that Joey's dad isn't interested in real karma. Just doing whatever it takes to make it look to the universe like he's making a difference. But even if Joey's dad's a pretty awful fella, he's not the real villain of this piece. Joey's mom has never been perfect, but this story wins her the official Worst Mom of the Year Award. She knows exactly how bad Joey's dad has been, but because he's now rich she's willing to throw aside her doubts and her child's safety so that she can live with the guy again. She's never around when Joey needs her most and about the moment she says, "I could use a drink. When I was pregnant with you a little drink every now and again did me a world of good," you're half a step away from calling Child Protective Services. On the other hand, it's moments like these that drill home just how extraordinary Joey really is. If he became a screaming psychopath you couldn't blame him a bit, but Gantos shows us that in spite of environment a person like Joey can show enough smarts and wherewithal to break free of his surroundings to become a decent human being. Gantos offers hope to the rest of us in the form of Joey.
I think the important thing about this book is that it makes it clear that forgiveness is different from stupidity. You can forgive someone and remember what they put you through. Forgiveness is not the same as memory loss. Casting aside preconceptions garnered in the past books and the fact that an adult will read this book on a different level than a child, this is undoubtedly one of the strongest titles of the year. "I Am Not Joey Pigza" may have been a gamble, but I'm certainly going to hope that it's one that pays off in the end.

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