In this funny, sad, and heart warming book, 14-year-old Reginald “Pukey” McKnight struggles with questions of friendship, identity, and faith. A great read for middle- school students.

Reggie otherwise known as Pukey on account of puking in front of everyone in the beginning of his 8th grade year just wants everyone to forget him. After the incident everyone always calls him Pukey especially his relentlessly cruel former friend Donovan. One day he just stopped hanging out with him, Joe C., and Ruthie. Joe C. always has a bottle of Juiced! with him which comes with random information that no one needs to know. Ruthie is what you would call an activist. She cares about everyone and will take any chance she gets to talk about global issues.

Now after the great fiasco Reggie is laying low this year. They'll forget about it all... eventually. In comes Blaylock, the principal of Clarke, telling everyone there will be a redo of the presidential candidacy because of the last one resigning like the next day. Ms.A, his teacher, looks at him encouragingly. He doesn't know why. What's the point? It's just a popularity contest. He would really like to help out the school and the community but will anyone listen? Yeah.. no.

This book through in a real surprise for me. It was all a big surprise really. I really liked it! The summary doesn't cut it. It does talk about Olive Branch which is this homeless shelter that he gets involved with because of his youth group. There's the surprise. It talks about God. Not overly. It's just nice because I was having a conversation with my mom the day before I read it. What a "coincidence". He was asking the question that everyone does which is why doesn't He fix it all? The characters! I love them. Donovan was making me angry! What was his problem? Well you'll find out. Nightman was a nice little addition to the story. Nightman is a comic. Won't go more into it. Reggie was such a great narrator. It was such a great book. I can't even explain as well as I want to. It's really nice. Read it!

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Coming of age story set in a very unique environment. Because the setting is so unusual, some adolescents may have troulbe relating to the main characters. ( )

Only got halfway through this one before I finally gave it up. It's slow to start, feels somewhat disjointed and it was a while before I realized the main character is Jamaican. The characters weren't fleshed out enough for me although you can pick out the surface stereotypes (the super-ambitious presidential candidate, the vocal young activist), and there was no obvious flavor of the Jamaican culture. ( )

I was impressed by how many different threads got wound into this book, and it's refreshing to see characters of faith represented as normal, everyday people living their lives.

Now what I want is a companion book with the excellent Ruthie as the main character...