Steve abruptly lost interest in school and fled from his demanding astronaut father in Texas to his mother in San Diego. His high school counselor makes a deal with Steve: he can make up a missing English credit and graduate on time, just by writing 100 pages on anything. Steve's account of what happened in Texas is interwoven with his present life in San Diego, the two narratives distinguished by different fonts.

This is a high school level book due more to content than to difficulty: Steve and his friends drink, use drugs, and have sex. The consequences of these actions are portrayed, certainly, but their choices are not morally censured. This excellent novel may gain renewed popularity; the author, Rob Thomas, is the creator and writer of several popular current television programs, including "Veronica Mars". ( )

Rats Saw God is a novel about a high school student writing a paper for his guidance counselor. Steve York, a senior who lives with his mom and sister in San Diego, California, must write a 100-page paper in order to have enough English credits to graduate. In his paper, Steve reflects on life with his father in Houston, Texas, during his sophomore and junior years of high school. His father Alan, or "The Astronaut," is very distant with Steve and they both avoid each other as much as possible. At school, Steve meets Dub. Not pretty, but a self-proclaimed "irresistable" girl, Dub is smart and spunky and Steve falls instantly in love with her. They have an eccentric, strange, yet simple relationship, and they seem to mesh together very well.
Then suddenly, everything in Steve's life starts to fall apart. He finds Dub and his AP English teacher have been having a secret affair behind his back, and his sister tells him the real reason his parents had divorced years earlier. Full of relatable teen issues like relationships, divorce, after-school jobs, and new experiences, I thought this novel was pretty good and very entertaining. ( )

I inhaled this book, enjoying the narrator's sardonic wit throughout; however, I felt that the resolution weirdly shifted focus only a few pages from the end, leaving me feeling kind of hoodwinked and unsatisfied.

Steve York, the narrator, is a high school burnout in what should be his final semester. He's managed to become a National Merit finalist, and he's also managed to be short one English credit for graduation. (Actually, we call that kind of kid a "semifinalist". A handful of smart kids are recognized by NM at every school, but the disaffected ones with B averages -- the 8% of National Merit kids that have bad attitudes and worse home lives -- don't become "finalists". Surely Thomas knows that and some editor strongarmed him into using this irritating misnomer. Shame on you, nasty armwrestling editor.)

His school guidance counselor challenges him to write a 100-page paper or story in order to make up the English credit. Steve can write about anything he wants, with the strong suggestion that it should be something he knows. As he writes about how he went from straight-A Houston student to San Diego pothead, he unwittingly begins to purge his demons. The story switches context from San Diego to Houston at irregular intervals. The two stories are rendered in different fonts and heralded by date and location headers -- it's not difficult to keep them straight. Steve's therapeutic writing, combined with new information he gleans in San Diego, recenters him and helps him make sense of his life back in Texas.

I identified with Steve a great deal; I enjoyed his voice and found his story believable but not boring or predictable. His story's not as traumatic as he thinks it is, and over the course of this short book he matures enough to figure that out. He reconciles with himself, and near the end of the book, he reconciles with his father. The second part feels shoehorned in, since the reader is led to believe for most of the book that neither Steve nor his profoundly aloof father are even aware that there is anything to reconcile. ( )

Kearsten says: San Diego, senior year: Steve York, son of famous astronaut Alan York (“the astronaut”), is failing classes, and is one English credit short of graduating. When his guidance counselor offers an assignment of a hundred page paper in exchange for that one credit, Steve decides to write what he knows, and so begins his recounting of his journey from the top of the world in Texas, sophomore year, where he had a job, a spot in an outlawed school club (the Grace Order of Dadaists – GOD for short), and a girlfriend with whom he was in love, to the present day, where he spends most of his days getting stoned out of his head on the beach. Very well done, great characters, most of their actions felt true. Also very funny… ( )

San Diego, senior year: Steve York, son of famous astronaut Alan York (“the astronaut”), is failing classes, and is one English credit short of graduating. When his guidance counselor offers an assignment of a hundred page paper in exchange for that one credit, Steve decides to write what he knows, and so begins his recounting of his journey from the top of the world in Texas, sophomore year, where he had a job, a spot in an outlawed school club (the Grace Order of Dadaists – GOD for short), and a girlfriend with whom he was in love, to the present day, where he spends most of his days getting stoned out of his head on the beach. Very well done, great characters, most of their actions felt true. Also very funny… ( )