Book Report: Dirty Jersey by Phillip Thomas Duck

You are the second lamest kid in your school. How far would you go to become popular? Is popularity worth giving up your beautiful, popular big sister, Kenya?

Dirty Jersey is about a boy named Eric who is hopelessly uncool, especially when he pees his pants in a fight with the toughest kid in school. But when Eric bumps into the rap sensation, Fiasco, he becomes popular. Fiasco doesn’t exactly have the best company; his bodyguard, Alonzo, is a pedophile and Fiasco knows it but keeps Alonzo around because he does his job. When Alonzo takes an interest Kenya, as soon as he tries something, Eric and Fiasco are there to save Kenya.

I do not suggest this book, though it has a good story, it makes you read at least 75% of it before you get to the important part.

You’ve got to be there for family, no matter what.

In the story, Kenya is completely against Eric, and who wouldn’t be? You wouldn’t want your lame little brother to bring down your popularity, would you?

Kenya even allows Crash, the toughest kid in school to beat Eric up. Not only that. She asks him not to take it easy. Kenya tells Crash to have his way with Eric.

Even after he finds that out, Eric rushes to Kenya’s rescue with backup.

This book’s setting is important to the story. Eric, Kenya, and their mother live in this little beat up neighborhood and they don’t have a lot of money. If the family had money and lived in a nicer neighborhood, I think that Alonzo would have been less tempted to pick up Kenya. He probably would think that Eric and Kenya’s mother could afford to hire someone to kill him, if she found out.

Eric was the second lamest kid in his school. His former best friend, Benny, was the lamest kid. The only reason he was lamer than Eric was because he was white and nerdy. When Benny’s grandmother said a few racist comments the first time she saw Eric, he was so upset. He ended his best friendship with Benny because of something Benny’s senile grandmother said. It is important because instead of hanging out with Benny like he usually does, Eric went to the mall because he wanted to see how cool people were in their natural habitat, where he met Fiasco. 

Kenya was the most popular girl at school. She had the looks, the grades, and the voice of the angels. She used to date Ricky Williams, the finest guy at school. But when she wouldn’t give up “the goodies” (as they refer to virginity in the book), he broke up with her. In their time of separation, Ricky got with another girl and got her pregnant, but nobody knew. Then he got back with Kenya, and Kenya talked to the other girl’s mother and told on Ricky. Everyone in school then labeled her a “snitch” and no one would talk to her. When she lost her popularity, she finally understood what Eric went through everyday.

The structure of this book is a little different, to my liking. The story was told by three different characters: Eric, Kenya, and a character named sister, who was raped by her mother’s boyfriend. Sister turns out to be Fiasco’s little sister, Mya, and the mother’s boyfriend turns out to be Alonzo.

I like the fact that the book switched points of view because seeing it from Kenya’s perspective was a whole different world away from Eric’s.

“I found this book to really drag, but wanted to finish it so I could review the entire book.” 

(Cahill, J.N. “One Star Review”. Goodreads.com. Jan 19, 2012. http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2932948-dirty-jersey.)

 I agree with this review because after a while, the book just seemed to drone on and on and I wanted to put it down on many occasions.

“Dirty Jersey is a two story person book. What I mean by that is the book tells two stories at once from two different points of view. Brother to a sister and lame to a popular.”

(India. “Five Star Review”. Goodreads.com. Feb 8, 2012. http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2932948-dirty-jersey.)

I agree with this review because the two complete opposite perspectives spice up the book.

“The summary of the book on the back is misleading.”

(Cel. “Good but…”. Amazon.com. Jun 10, 2012. http://www.amazon.com/Dirty-Jersey-Kimani-Phillip-Thomas/dp/0373830947/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1366081629&sr=8-2&keywords=dirty+jersey)

I agree with this 110%. I think that whoever wrote the summary on the back needs to read the book. When I finished, I was fairly confused as to why the back said Fiasco wanted Kenya when Alonzo is the one that wanted her.