Yearbook

Lester is a senior. He spends time with his best friends Freesia and BF virtually every day. But Les is having a little trouble navigating his senior year. There is a new teacher in AP Humanities, and Lester doesn’t like that the new teacher is changing the curriculum. Lester had been looking forward to close study of Paradise Lost, and this guy has other things in mind. But Freesia loves the new teacher, Jeff, and his new reading list. Things begin to tug at Freesia and Lester’s relationship. When Jeff takes over the yearbook class, it seems Les will really come off the rails until Les and his group find common ground with Jeff and, as a group, take on the very flawed administration.

Author Jesse Edward Johnson has captured the rebellious souls of bright high school students put in the situation of having poorly trained administrators. Is it a realistic situation? It happens. But perhaps Johnson should take his own advice when he has his teacher character tell his student to lose his thesaurus. The book is overwritten and over-long. It would be a much better book with some smart and brutal editing. That said, it’s a fun story.