"Geeks" [Brian]

The second book that I read over the summer that was in the GNS school summer reading list was the fiction book Geeks: How Two Lost Boys Rode the Internet out of Idaho by Jon Katz.
So that you wouldn't get confused, I would like to start with a short summary of this book. The title says most of it, although I only understood the title by the time I read about one thirds of the book. The story is written in first person point of view just so you know. Also, the word "geek" is used by all often in this novel, so I will use it too.
Jon Katz goes to see Jesse, a friend he met over the Internet and is living with his best friend, Eric in a small town of Caldwell, Idaho. Over the few days of the time that Jon spends in Jesse and Eric's apartment, he learns that both of his new friends are complete "geeks". He suggests that they go out into the bigger world where there are hundreds of jobs available to people like them. In a few months, they go to Chicago where they find a new apartment, new jobs that pay more than what their fathers earned in their home town and much better food. By e-mail, Jon learns how the two boys are starting to think of working in a big company as a computer/ program designer instead of fixing computers in a cubicle, and for that to happen they have to go to university. Jesse tries to go to University of Chicago, and with Jon's help, succeeds. On the other hand, Eric not only fails to go to the university he chooses, but gives up all his dreams and becomes depressed.
In the middle of the book, the Author mentions the Columbine shooting, where he learns that 80% of the Americans think that the reason for shooting was because computer games. Because of that, the geeks all around country are hated and scared by all other students and teachers. All these geeks send mails to Jon Katz or post in online forums.
Many ideas are mentioned, such as that "the geeks aren't alone, because they have the Internet where there are separate rules", "what they would have been if they were born a decade ago", and many others.

1) I recommend you read this book for these two reasons:
(two reasons why you would like this book if you read it)

• Even though it is a non-fiction book, it is a likable book for all readers. I am not a fan of non-fiction books. In fact, I have not read a single biography, or any kind of non-fiction books unless I was forced to. However, since the novel seemed so close to a fiction, but is still a non-fiction book. It is a real page turner book for all readers looking for a new book.
• It is not only an enjoyable novel, but it can teach anybody some lessons. If you are somebody who think yourself as a lonely person who can't seem to get any friends, you would know that you are not that alone as you thought you were in the past. If you are somebody who likes to make fun of others who are in worse situations than you, you might learn that they will defend themselves sometime and how bad you can feel from being separated. Unless you are a heartless person who learns nothing from novels, it would be a good book for you.
• There are letters and e-mails sent to Jon Katz in the middle of the novel, along with the ones that were sent to him by Jesse and Eric from time to time, which shows that Katz is not making any parts of this book to make it sound good.

In this book, there are some swearing, and I was quite surprised that there was any swearing at all, because people in this book didn't sound like people who would swear a lot. However, I think students of grade ten can handle such things.

4) The opening + closing shots of a movie based on this book would look like this...

Although I think that this would not be a good book to made into a movie because there is no action and mostly talking, I think that in both the opening and the closing shot of the movie, Jon Katz would be working on something and is suddenly reminded of this incident which goes in the whole story would be narrated by Jon Katz. I would think this because this is a movie where there is no action, and since there are many job that a journalist must do, even many important events in one's life would be forgotten. I think that the closing shot would also be similar to the beginning of the book, where he explains the ends of his story.