Are you entering middle school or have you entered middle school already and think it has scarred you for life because of its mean people, more rules, grades, and wonder why it is so hard? Well this book called Middle School: The Worst Years of my Life will give you a lot of laughs and is enjoyable for all ages! But some grownups might not enjoy it and, no offense, say, back in my day, we had blah blah blah.

Middle School: The Worst Years of my Life is a book about a boy named Rafe who is entering sixth grade. Sixth grade has a lot of rules and regulations and a frightening bully. Leo, his imaginary friend, tells him that normal is “boring” and that Rafe should start breaking rules. He draws a picture of someone breaking rules, and Rafe modifies it a bit. Then Rafe turns this into a game. He decides that by the end of the year, he will have broken all of the school rules! It’s called Operation Rafe. 

He earns points for every time he breaks a rule. There’s the no electronics rule, the no chewing gum rule, and no running in the halls. But to Rafe, those are basic rules to break. And if he’s going to break every rule, then he’s going ALL out! Which means pulling the fire alarm on the first day of school itself. He continues to break more rules, until the bully comes and goes and asks what Rafe’s deal is, trying to break all the rules. The bully grabs his notebook and tells Rafe that to get it back, it’s one dollar for each page. 

Leo, being unfair, decides to just add three random lives, and by losing that notebook, a life was lost. Rafe still continues to try to break more rules, and gets detention once. That doesn’t really end well, since he tries to delete the message, and instead, it appears in a call for Rafe’s mom, Jules. Once she finds out, Bear, or Carl, the “dad”, is enraged. By the way, the reason why I put dad in quotes is because he’s technically not engaged to her yet.

Even after his detention, more and more rules were broken by him. He had some encounters with his crush, (he totally likes her) Jeanne, and now also has to get tutoring because of his bad grades. Even worse, his tutor is Jeanne herself. And one time, Jeanne goes into the boy’s bathroom to get Rafe, which causes her to get detention. Because someone gets hurt, Rafe loses all of his lives. Game. Over. 

Will it even make any point if he breaks any rules? Maybe, maybe not. Without the game, it’s seeming to be pointless. So Leo decides to get rid of the lives and tells him to do something that is very illegal, something that only a crazy person would do: paint on school property at night. He gets caught, but then it gets worse. That day, Carl and Jules argue, which causes Jules to “accidentally ” get pushed by Carl off the front porch. Jules gets mad at Carl, and the police come AGAIN. 

Does it end like this? No way. I have revealed a lot, but you can find out more by reading this book! I recommend it to kids and funny parents as well as kids entering middle school. So go ahead and read this humorous book!

Written by Kruti Patel