As you’ve probably realized by now, I like my books a bit on the absurd side. So I had high hopes for today’s Operation Story Share, School of Fear by Gitty Daneshvari.
Here’s the inside cover copy:
Everyone is afraid of something . . . Madeleine Masterson is deathly afraid of bugs, especially spiders. Theodore Bartholomew is petrified of dying. Lulu Punchalower is scared of confined spaces. Garrison Feldman is terrified of deep water.
Which is why this may be the scariest summer of their lives. Worse than detention or summer school. Even worse than the orthodontist. The foursome must face their phobias at the exclusive and elusive School of Fear. The school is unusual, to say the least. But “terrifying” would be a more accurate description.
The curriculum is simple: Conquer your fears in six weeks or find out just how frightening failing can be.
Sounds good, doesn’t it? And it was, just not quite as good as I hoped. See, it was a bit too absurd, if you ask me. Mrs. Wellington, School of Fear’s headmaster, was an aging beauty queen stuck in her old pageant glory days. What should have been no more than a silly character tag seemed to take over the middle of the book.
I debated whether or not to recommend School of Fear, by Gitty Daneshvari. But in the end, the good parts outweighed the bad. Plenty of people must have liked it, because there are two more in the series. I guess this is one you’ll have to make your own decision on.
