"High School Confidential" by Jeremy Iverson

 

So I begin the book looking for an insight on high school students. I’m expecting Iverson to point out irony or make suggestions about change in the high school world. I don’t really know, but I know I was not expecting this.

When Iverson begins school he said that he is looking for a real high school experience. He wanted a sub-urban school southern California that had averageness about it. The demographics where not completely dominated in any one direction. He found it at Mirador High School. I guess his intention was simply to record what was happening at school, the social clicks, the drugs, any nuances and put it on paper. A real-to-life Breakfast Club, if you will. However, with no statement of change, no premise, and no actual rhyme or reason for being there (other than that he had never had this experience and now he thought he could do it if he has some reason-like to write a book) this really posed a problem for me.

I lived this experience. Really! To the fullest! I mean my high school was a so cal suburban school with a mixed demographic. I mean picture American Pie. I lived that movie. Literally. They filmed the movie on my campus! And guess what? I don’t want to relive high school in a book.

Iverson offered no insight. I know how kids cheat, I know how girls sleep around, I know about the drugs, I get the clicks, I have had the teachers that either don’t care or think they are one of the students, I have experienced budget cuts and I understand that no one would probably truly get along if it wasn’t for the fact that they were trapped together for 8 hours a day. This is not new to me. I wanted Iverson to explain something that I would not know. Offer insight into something that maybe I didn’t get; but alas no. I could have written my high school experience and it would have looked identical. But trust me, even if I wrote my own high school experience down I would not be reading it.

Maybe this book would be more appealing to detached adults that are possibly over 40 (and the only reason that I threw out that number was because rend of mine that are in their mid 30s remember high school the same way that Iverson accounts it). So I know high school has not changed that much within the last 20 years. I don’t really know though…

What do you think? Like it? Hate it? Offered incite? Didn’t offer anything? What? Tell.

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