Reading Blue Devils by Jon Bennett

So ya boy dieter is a teacher and uhhhh he doesn’t suck? He’s lazy and manipulat(able)ive. Reading Blue Devils is about this mans and a mascot. There’s a number of ways I’m both the right wrong person to read Reading Blue Devils. I’m a former  teacher. I’m Pretty “woke”. I have a strong high fantasy preference . I’m usually real good at suspending my disbelief but there’s a degree to which I have to get something in return. I have to get reasonably transported in the exchange. BD ughhh didn’t do that

TheWriting felt young; this is a YA novel? I’m asking. Cuz I can’t tell. There are dick jokes, which, LOL tbh, and teen angst but there are also these moments with erudite language and I’m not quite sure who it’s for.

The Plot felt plodding at times but I was drawn in because of my experience teacher. A lot of Dieter’s experiences felt familiar and I speak his language. Because of that familiarity I think I was ready to get to the end of the school year just as he was, so i bought in. That pacing felt familiar to me. Plus,  i wanted to see the brown kids get the freedom. Dieter was leading them toward

I felt similarly ambivalent about the characters. So many of them felt familiar, especially the students, but then again, so many of them felt like archetypes. They weren’t static for the most part, which was nice, but their development (perhaps as a result of their use in the plot, felt predictable). dieter wasn’t terribly believable; like one doesnt simply (walk to Mordor) decide to be a great teacher overnight. I get that the devil was helping him or whatever but so many of these moments felt real montagey in a way that was vampire than Blue Devils wanted to be

SPOILERS AND SUCH

Aka don’t read this this section, dummy!

So the devil was confusing. Like. What were his motivations beyond putting a devil on the school as it’s mascot? Did he have a bet? Was there some larger competition between heaven and hell at play? There’s a marked lack of resolution there that left me feeling cheated. The turn at the end was a blower insofar as it was just so heavy handed. I understand WHY god could have saved the day in a novel where literal Satan is a character, pero like we didn’t need Jesus to show up and deliver justice, appearing in a halo of light. Idk, god coulda had this moment and role and been written much better.

Rating 3/5 shots of absolut I stole from my dad’s cabinet

Pairing: southern comfort, cuz I didn’t necessarily enjoy it but I’m drunk now I guess, and have a headache.