X'ed Out by Charles Burns


Adam Kepler interviews Charles Burns.

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A fresh and thought-provoking dystopian young adult novel set in the not-so-distant future where the scored are watched and rated 24/7. Scored masterfully addresses the rapidly disappearing middle class in America, the quiet evaporation of privacy, and what it means when we're always 'on.' Cory Doctorow eloquently sums it up in his Boing Boing review , "This book is the antidote to the pointless hand-wringing about Facebook, reality TV, and the PATRIOT Act, a chance to get out of the trite cul-de-sac where these conversations always end up, and to move into green pastures." Give this to fans of The Hunger Games and Marie Lu's Legend . The easy reading level makes it a superb EAL/ESL alternative to 1984 or Brave New World. Grade 7+
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I'm not a team sports enthusiast. Truly, I'm vehemently anti-athletics of the team variety, since, among more virtuous geopolitical reasons, they remind me of being tortured by jocks as a new wave teen. Still, I relished Bachelder's book, because it isn't really about organized sport. Rather, it's a near-scientific observation of twenty-two men in the throes of middle life who have gathered annually for the last sixteen years to reenact Joe Theismann's 1985 leg-shattering play, known as "The Throwback Special," laced with heavy doses of bittersweet humor - a favorite flavor of mine. Those of you who miss the pleasure of eavesdropping on humans conversing in public spaces* will appreciate the low- and high-brow overheard philosophical gems sprinkled throughout the work as the men, largely begrudgingly, prepare for a ritual many of them are no longer emotionally invested in. Reading it felt like the best kind of being invisible: reader as witness to a c...
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