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K. L. Going

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King of the Screwups Kindle Edition

by K. L. Going (Author) Format: Kindle Edition

4.4 62 ratings

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Liam Geller is Mr. Popularity. Everybody loves him. He excels at sports; he knows exactly what clothes to wear; he always ends up with the most beautiful girls in school. But he's got an uncanny ability to screw up in the very ways that tick off his father the most.
When Liam finally gets kicked out of the house, his father's brother takes him in. What could a teenage chick magnet possibly have in common with his gay, glam rocker, DJ uncle who lives in a trailer in upstate New York? A lot more than you'd think. And when Liam attempts to make himself over as a nerd in a desperate attempt to impress his father, it's his "aunt" Pete and the guys in his band who convince Liam there's much more to him than his father will ever see.

Reading age

12 years and up
Print length

332 pages
Language

English
Grade level

7 - 9
Lexile measure

HL690L
Publisher

Clarion Books
Publication date

May 3, 2010
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Word Wise

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Sticky notes

On Kindle Scribe
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Editorial Reviews

From Booklist

Like her previous novels, including the Printz Honor Book Fat Kid Rules the World (2003), Going’s latest is a surprising, memorable story shaped from unlikely character bonds. High-school senior Liam is a talented, straight athlete who is as gorgeous as his mother, a former supermodel, and has inherited her interest in clothes: “I love fashion. And girls.” A mediocre student, he constantly disappoints his dad, an angry, sometimes verbally abusive executive who kicks Liam out of the house after one too many perceived transgressions. Against his homophobic dad’s wishes, Liam moves in with his gay, cross-dressing, trailer-dwelling uncle, Aunt Pete. Determined to meet his father’s expectations, Liam joins the AV club at his new school and actively tries to fight his natural status as “Mr. Popularity”; but once again, everything goes awry. Liam’s parents occasionally feel more like caricatures than fully developed characters, but Liam and Aunt Pete are true originals, and Going balances her strong messages of self-discovery and acceptance with compassionate, bittersweet scenes that highlight the soul-sapping futility of trying to please unappeasable adults. Grades 7-12. --Gillian Engberg

Review

"Going's latest (after The Garden of Eve) is full of comic moments featuring "Aunt" Pete's glam-rock band buddies and Liam's relentless blunders, as well as his uncommon fashion expertise ("You're like a fashion Einstein," gushes one of Pete's friends). Readersscrewups or notwill empathize as Liam, utterly likable despite his faults, learns to be himself."Publishers Weekly, starred review

Liam is a multifaceted and resilient character who ultimately learns how to be comfortable in his own skin with the help of his new, makeshift family. Going’s knack for defying stereotypes and creating memorable characters will not disappoint fans of Fat Kid Rules the World (Putnam, 2003) and Saint Iggy (Harcourt, 2006).--School Library Journal, starred review "Going’s latest flows easily with smooth, realistic dialogue and reads like a coming-out story for straight guys. This innovative, out-of-the-box approach juxtaposes stereotypes, received values, parental roles and masculinity in a jarringly fun and approachable manner that marks a triumphant left-turn for the genre. Cloaked as a story of tough love, this is actually a psychological exploration of the impact of parental expectations versus the dreams of their children."--Kirkus "Liam and Aunt Pete are true originals, and Going balances her strong messages of selfdiscovery and acceptance with compassionate, bittersweet scenes that highlight the soul-sapping futility of trying to please unappeasable adults."--Booklist "Going creates an engaging cast of characters . . . Liam is a complex character whose development into a sympathetic, real person is compelling."--VOYA (4Q4P) After her darker, more enigmatic turn with Saint Iggy . . . Going delivers an involving coming-of-age character study likely to please fans of her Fat Kid Rules the World.”--The Bulletin "Going's writing is smooth and simple."--New York Times Book Review

Product details

ASIN ‏ : ‎ B00CR6SRVY
Publisher ‏ : ‎ Clarion Books; Reprint edition (May 3, 2010)
Publication date ‏ : ‎ May 3, 2010
Language ‏ : ‎ English
File size ‏ : ‎ 1072 KB
Text-to-Speech ‏ : ‎ Enabled
Screen Reader ‏ : ‎ Supported
Enhanced typesetting ‏ : ‎ Enabled
X-Ray ‏ : ‎ Not Enabled
Word Wise ‏ : ‎ Enabled
Sticky notes ‏ : ‎ On Kindle Scribe
Print length ‏ : ‎ 332 pages

Best Sellers Rank: #2,292,899 in Kindle Store (See Top 100 in Kindle Store)
- #236 in Teen & Young Adult Alternative Family Fiction
- #526 in Teen & Young Adult Fiction on Boys' & Men's Issues (Kindle Store)
- #666 in Teen & Young Adult Fiction about Self-Esteem

Customer Reviews:
4.4 62 ratings

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K. L. Going

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K.L. Going is the award-winning author of books for children and teens. Her first novel, Fat Kid Rules the World was a Michael Printz Honor Book, listed with YALSA's Best Books for Young Adults and their Best Books for the Past Decade. Her books have been Booksense picks, Scholastic Book Club choices, Junior Library Guild selections, NY Public Library Best Books for the Teenage, and winners of state book awards. Her work has been published in Korea, Italy, Japan, Germany, and the UK, and Fat Kid Rules the World is now a major motion picture!

K.L. began her career working at one of the oldest literary agencies in New York City. She used this inner knowledge of publishing to write Writing and Selling the Young Adult Novel -- a how-to book for aspiring writers. She has also written short stories for several anthologies and currently has multiple picture books under contract. She lives in Glen Spey, NY where she both writes and runs a business critiquing manuscripts. She's also an adoring mom.

To visit KL on-line go to www.klgoing.com, www.facebook.com/KLGoing, or find her on Twitter!

Customer reviews

4.4 out of 5

62 global ratings

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Deborah H Robinson

A good modern novel with a timeless message.

Reviewed in the United States on February 4, 2014

Verified Purchase

This YA book is about a teenage boy who cant get along with his very strict father, and so he is sent away to live with his mother's brother. It reminded me a little bit of Holden Caufield in Catcher in the Rye. Happily, all's well that end's well in both books.

Reviewed in the United States on April 27, 2016

Verified Purchase

Favorite book by K.L Going!! It is one of her light books, which makes it the right kind of read! Funny, touching, fun, and the characters are the best!
LOVED IT!!!

Reviewed in the United States on February 14, 2011

Verified Purchase

This is a good book that anyone who has family that won't let them be themselves needs to read. Enlightening.

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PDXbibliophile

Laugh Out Loud Funny Beautifully Poignant

Reviewed in the United States on August 27, 2013

Verified Purchase

A great read for young adults. Almost every teen, including reluctant readers, will be able to relate to Liam and his well-intentioned (usually), often amusing attempts to win the approval of his impossible to please father. K. L. Going creates characters who are real human beings - sometimes flawed, always sincere, frequently funny and not a single stereotype in the bunch. King of the Screwups shows that sometimes growing up means facing painful truths about yourself, friends and family.

Reviewed in the United States on October 3, 2015

Verified Purchase

great writing compelling story

Reviewed in the United States on October 9, 2022

Vine Customer Review of Free Product( What's this? )

This book is pretty funny. The main character is likeable and his voice and perspective are clear right away. He drives the story well and the plot, although predictable in some places, is still a good story. Overall, I very much enjoyed reading this one.

One person found this helpful

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Mike

Breezy, entertaining, but overlong, and mildly generic YA fiction

Reviewed in the United States on June 12, 2009

Vine Customer Review of Free Product( What's this? )

More like 3 1/2 if that was an option.

The plot of "King of the Screwups" starts off by borrowing a page from the Salinger playbook - except this time Liam is kicked out of his house by his disappointed software developer father who is disappointed that he wants to be a model (like his mother) and moves in with his uncle "Aunt Pete" who lives in a trailer park. Liam screws up constantly, whether it's at the beginning of the book when his parents walk in on him having sex in their house, when he writes the word "the" in a class taught by his uncle's boyfriend. Then Liam has an epiphany.

Unlike every other book where the shy kid moves to a new school to become popular, Liam tries to be more of a nerd (which is a welcome twist for the genre), like his software developer father. Comic mishaps ensue including getting arrested by an altogether familiar police officer after attempting to spice up a party. Yadda yadda, be yourself. That kind of thing. Then there is a climactic and extremely predictable showdown in the principal's office between Liam's uncle and his father.

It's not as bad as it sounds though even if it isn't particularly original. Most of the characters are flat. Liam's father has about as much depth as a sheet of tracing paper and serves as a vaudevillesque antagonist who yells at his saintly wife and tries to sign up Liam for the military. Aunt Pete's friends often serve as plot devices. Yet, Liam is a surprisingly likable protagonist and Aunt Pete is one of the better written gay characters in YA lit.

Some of the dialogue is snarky and very funny, too. After the aforementioned police incident, Liam is confronted and says he needed to relax, then Aunt Pete responds, "from all the sleeping and watching television you do?"

It's fairly funny at times (and I think the intended audience might find it very funny), and the friction Liam experiences with his parents is something some teens with business-oriented parents can relate to. Despite the fact Liam does a million stupid things, comic mishaps wreak cosmic justice on him every time and eventually he learns valuable moral lessons from his uncle, so I don't think the book has any character issues, either.

Here's where the major problem comes in - I'm a tad mixed on this book because as a teacher, I can see it's borderline unteachable, though it would be a welcome addition to class libraries (especially since it deals with homosexuality in a tasteful way), but I can also see that many adolescent caucasian girls and a minority of males would probably enjoy it even if it's not a particularly great book. Here are some of the reasons why.

While I think it'd be fine for a classroom library and deals pretty honestly with middle and lower middle class gay culture, and I think white middle class teenage girls would love it, it's not really particularly teachable given the sexual content, length of the book (310 pages!) and lack of consistent literary devices besides flashbacks and stream-of-consciousness narration (which I think is a literary technique better taught vis-a-vis the much shorter and better-written Catcher in the Rye). Teaching Catcher is hard in a diverse setting. Teaching this (which has no recognizably African-American characters and a male protagonist that wants to be a supermodel) would get me tarred and feathered.

Given it's a YA book by one of the major children's book publishers, lesson planning is normally thats something that's important. No lesson plan guides on the author or publisher's website (though I can see why). It's written on a 4th or 5th grade level, which is good if you have low-proficiency students, but I doubt low proficiency students will be clamoring to read a 300+ page book. I would've liked to have seen slightly more advanced vocabulary being used in a book of this length.

Also, in order to characterize Liam, Going inserts overly lengthy decriptions of clothing in his first person narration, which grows tiresome - especially considering how long the book already is. I would expect outright revolt from the boys. In short, not a bad book for adolescent girls and a few fashion-oriented boys (I think they'll like it), but a terrible book to teach.

Also, taken in comparison to books like "The Catcher in the Rye" and Chbosky's "Confessions of a Wallflower" (which is a great book to teach epistolary narrative), this book is about 100 pages too long, and suffers from a lack of teaching materials (I checked the publisher page, most YA books come out with lesson planning guides, this didn't).

If you're a teen and this book sounds interesting, I'd read "Catcher in the Rye" or "Confessions of a Wallflower" first, but pick this up if you'e already read those, you'll like it. If you're a teacher, a definite "yes" for the classroom library. A definite "no" to teaching.

4 people found this helpful

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JDFshopper

Great book!

Reviewed in the United States on November 29, 2010

Verified Purchase

Really great book following the story of a teenage boy named Liam as he struggles to find an identity that will agree with his father's picky temper. Provides an interesting commentary on issues such as fitting in, homosexuality, and popularity.

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