Into the Wild Nerd Yonder

It happens to everyone: a longtime friend changes on you and things aren't the same anymore, and it's just time to move on. Jessie's two best friends Bizza and Char are obsessed with being part of a cool crowd, horning in on Jessie's brother's band practice like groupies. After Bizza selfishly hooks up with Jessie's crush (and contracts an STD), Jessie looks elsewhere for friendship and finds the niche where she belongs, even if her cool cred might take a hit. Jessie's first-person narrative is chatty, smart and funny; she's a thoughtful, nerdy teen who comes across as a girl you'd like to befriend. This book shows that it's OK and necessary to outgrow friends, and that finding true pals who genuinely share your interests is better than show more trying to meet expectations of cool. The portrayal of Jessie's close relationship with brother Barrett is particularly nice. show less

The title intrigued me. The synopsis had me worried. The actual book... was great.

Jessie is a clever, interesting teenage girl who has the added bonus of actually sounding like a real teenage girl. Young adult novels often apparently share the impression that the only thing teenage girls ever care about is social status and boys and shopping, but Jessie is a math whiz, a caring sister who will miss bantering with her older brother when he leaves for college, and though she has a crush on one of her brother's friends, she doesn't write her name with little hearts around it either.

When her two best friends abandon her to hang out with said brother's friend, she balances the pain of seeing people you loved and thought were forever show more drifting away with the anger of being tossed aside. So she makes new friends. And that's when it gets interesting.

So many young adult novels have people think they're nerds because they're good at math or don't smoke or whatever. It hasn't been *that* long since high school, and none of those things really mattered. But Julie Halpern picked the one last taboo in a culture where Lord of the Rings is cool again, Star Wars is awesome, and it's considered cool to be a nerdy gamer: tabletop role-playing. Specifically, D&D.

I was half-cringing in expectation when it came to Jessie's first game night: was the author a true D&D player? Was she faking it based on 80s propagandist movies?

My fears were almost immediately alleviated at the first time the DM said, "Roll for initiative", and I knew that she was a true RP'er when she pointed out that most tabletop gamers look down on LARPers. Here was a woman who knows of what she speaks.

Jessie isn't the only interesting character, though - the group she games with are a little bit on the misfit side, but mostly normal. They're not portrayed as stereotyped nerds, just a little off the beaten path. And that's pretty much true. Of the guys I used to game with, one is a therapist, another is a lawyer, and another is a police officer. It's refreshing to see any media with D&D showing normal people, rather than one-step-away-from-psychopath or socially crippled nerds.

All in all, that's the word that best describes this book. Refreshing. It's a new take on an old story (girl grows apart from friends in high school due to boy troubles) and Jessie and her friends are smart, funny, and engaging.

Definitely worth a read, especially if you're one of the tribe who carries their D20s ever at the ready, just in case. show less

Jessie’s sophomore year of high school is not going so well. Her two best friends have turned into wannabe punks, and her beloved older brother is leaving for college soon. Lost and in need of new friends, Jessie stumbles across the Dungeons & Dragons-playing crowd—truly the nerdiest of the nerdy, even by her standards. But as she gets to know the people in the group—and maybe even finds a cute guy to crush on—Jessie realizes that nerds can make really good friends…

INTO THE WILD NERD YONDER is a cute and heartfelt look into the treacherous waters that is high school friendships. While it didn’t make me fall in love with it as it did with many others, INTO THE WILD NERD YONDER was still a charming read with excellent show more characters.

Jessie is a likable protagonist, with her sewing tendencies, warm-hearted worries, and self-proclaimed nerdiness. She’s nerdy, but not in a way that will put off readers/potential friends. She has such a healthy relationship with her family—her relationship with her brother is particularly touching—that the focus of the book can be off the stereotypical teen family angst and more about worries regarding friendships.

While the characters (and, indeed, the whole storyline) are not exceptionally deep or memorable, everything has the pleasant feel-good entertainment value of, say, a Disney Channel original movie: the “villains” are not irredeemably bad, the problems inconvenient but not devastating. The plot moved along at a leisurely pace so that the second half of the book, in which Jessie finds new friends, feels a bit rushed.

However, these are not failings but simply characteristics of the genre that INTO THE WILD NERD YONDER falls into: an easy and light read with characters who make us smile and a moral that makes us nod in recognition. If this is the type of read you’re reading for, look no further than this one. show less

At 5:30 this Saturday, I walked upstairs and asked my husband "How do you know when a book was great?" He smirked at me and answered "I'm guessing it's when you just read the whole thing in two hours." He was right. I sat down Saturday afternoon with Into the Wild Nerd Yonder, not knowing what to expect, and was immediately drawn in. The book chronicles' Jessie's sophomore year of high school, when the two best friends she has had since she was a toddler decide they want to become punks and Jessie isn't sure where she fits in any more. Based on that sentence, I'm sure you can tell that this could be just another teen coming of age story, but Julie's character is so clever, funny, and real that it loses any concerns about being cheesy. show more It is made stronger by the great supporting cast, including her older brother Barrett and her quirky parents. Jessie is smart and enjoys school, but worries about being nerdy, something I could definitely relate to. Is it better to be lonely and unlabeled or throw yourself in with a fun group that others call nerdy? I absolutely adored this book as it is just plain fun. show less

At the start of their sophomore year of high school, Jessie's two best friends, Bizza and Char, transform themselves into punks to gain the attention of Jessie's brother's band. Jessie is frustrated with her friends' artificial punk personae and how they use her to get access to the band, but the worst offense occurs when Bizza chases after Jessie's longtime crush, Van. When Jessie decides it is time for new friends, she unexpectedly finds herself falling in with the Dungeons and Dragons crowd.

Jessie is an entertaining and sarcastic narrator with a unique personality-- her passion is for sewing skirts from unusual material and a goal of having a different skirt for every day of the school year. The book's primary theme is that people show more have depth beyond the stereotypes that identify them, and appropriately all the characters are multi-faceted and complex. Even Bizza, the main antagonist, has enough depth that the reader understands why the girls were friends to begin with. Later scenes between Bizza and Jessie realistically portray the complicated situation of two long-time friends who have grown apart. Jessie's personal struggles are well developed, and readers will sympathize with her conflicting feelings about Van, as well as her insecurities about being accepted by a new group and concerns that hanging out with the 'geeks' will destroy her reputation. This is an entertaining read about navigating the cliquey world of high school, though it could have benefited from more scenes between Jessie and her new D&D friends. Some sexual content and language makes this book most appropriate for high school age readers. show less

Jessie Sloan can't quite figure out where she belongs. She has long lived in the shadow of her beloved older brother Barrett, a fixture on the local punk scene, and her best friends Bizza and Char, who assume new identities with the seasons. But with her sophomore year beginning, Bizza and Char are moving in on Barrett's territory, and Barrett is moving on from punk. . . with the homecoming queen? Jessie's increasing discomfort with Bizza and Char's choices force her to expand her social horizons and actually get to know the other students in her classes, including a band camp veteran, a guy in too-short pants, and a girl who is "one of the known weirdos of Greenville High. And junior high. And elementary." What will big brother Barrett show more think of Jessie's new friends? Are Bizza and Char lost for good? And if Jessie's new friends are nerds. . . what does that make Jessie?

Into the Wild Nerd Yonder is a great read on several levels. I loved Jessie's relationship with big brother Barrett, who is pretty much exactly what any girl would want in a big brother. Their relationship was fun, and it was real, and definitely one of my favorite parts of the book. I also liked Jessie's new friends, who defy their stereotypes by being kind, interesting people who have different interests than what is "popular". Jessie might not know what to make of Dungeons and Dragons at first, but over the course of the novel she learns to recognize her true friends.

Another thing that I really liked about this novel is how it handled the breakdown of Jessie's friendship with Bizza and Char. Anyone who has been through adolescence knows that not every childhood friendship survives middle and high school. Sometimes people grow in different directions, and sometimes the friendship wasn't strong to begin with. Although a lot of readers will probably consider Bizza to be a villain, for me she was just a teenager making very stupid and selfish choices. (My absolute favorite scene in the novel is when Jessie's dad tells her what he really thought of Bizza, even as a child. Parents and fellow teachers, you'll see what I'm talking about).

Into the Wild Nerd Yonder has some frank discussions of sex and the kids talk like real teenagers (translation: swearing!), which means that I can't put it in my classroom, but I absolutely recommend it for older teens, and if I were a parent, I would definitely want my daughter to read this book before high school. Now if only I could find someone to teach me to play Dungeons and Dragons. . . show less

I wasn't sure I was going to like Halpern's book, especially because I worried this would be like one of those cliche high school movies. In fact, it was nothing of the sort. Into the Wild Nerd Yonder is far more than just a book about high school. It's about feeling left out, about being different, about figuring out what friends are. And, most of all, it's one of the few books that gives geeks/nerds, especially gaming kind, an extremely good name. The book was exceptionally fun, hilarious and with a few moments of sadness. There's no need to be a geek or a nerd to enjoy this book.