33 Minutes by Todd Hasak-Lowy, is a coming of age novel about Sam Lewis, the smartest seventh grader in middle school. Sam is going to get his butt-kicked by his former best friend Morgan at recess, in 33 minutes. As the novel opens, the titular countdown to the moment when Morgan is scheduled to beat up Sam has begun. Sam and Morgan used to be the bestest of friends until the new kid Chris drives them apart. Todd Hasak-Lowy depicts middle school perfectly in a comical way.
Despite the fact that Sam Lewis and Morgan Sturzts were best friends since elementary school, Sam has managed to make Morgan hate him, accidentally. Sam was just being himself, smart. When I read this, I thought it was true to middle school. Some people don’t realize, but there is a sort of coolness to not being the smartest kid in the grade, although this is not entirely true at MS 51, there is still a sense of this. Another example of how perfectly Todd Hasak-Lowy depicts middle school, is the way he captures the awkwardness of being thirteen. Although he is an adult writer, he remembers what it’s like being in middle school. As a teenager, I find that anything that involves social interaction, awkward. In school, there is a sort of social hierarchy. As demonstrated in the novel, there are the popular kids/ jocks, the sixth graders, the seventh graders and the kids like Sam. It’s sort of like the movie “Mean Girls” if you think about it.
Overall, Todd Hasak-Lowy captures the friendship, awkwardness and social life of middle school perfectly. I would recommend this book to elementary school students so they can understand how middle school works.
