Fetching by Kiera Stewart

by Kiera Stewart

A crew of middle school nobodies secretly use dog training techniques on their classmates to go from eighth-grade underdogs to leaders of the pack, only to discover being top dog isn’t all they expected it to be.

Genres: Realistic Fiction, Young Adult, Fiction, Young Adult Contemporary, Dogs, Middle Grade

Hardcover

First published January 1, 2011

About the author

Kiera Stewart is a writer for teens and tweens. Her qualifications include never having gotten wisdom teeth, and having the same best friend since eighth grade.

Kiera is the author of three novels: FETCHING; HOW TO BREAK A HEART; and THE SUMMER OF BAD IDEAS. You can learn more and connect with Kiera at www.kierastewart.com.

Reviews

[Hiba Ahmed · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very good book, here is the SWBST -

13-year-old Olivia Albert is trying to fit in to Middle school with all her friends. All the kids make fun of them and pull pranks on them, but Olivia decides that it’s time they start taking some action. Olivia decides that maybe dog training the kids in her school to like them and not like Brynne, (the class bully) would work. Humans have a lot same traits as different dog breeds, so she just needs to train them according to their breed. Olivia and her friends are about to give up on this dog training thing when they actually see improvement. The popular kids have started to become nice to them and people are always trying to help them. Just as they were getting a hang of this being popular thing, Brynne tries to become Olivia’s friend. Olivia thinks this is a good thing, being friends with a popular girl like Brynne is everything she ever wanted. However, she is yet to figure out why Brynne is sticking with her, and figures out that this isn’t the way she wanted to be friends with Brynne. Olivia starts to miss her old friends and wants to go back hanging out with them. (she ditched them for Brynne because they told her her biggest secret.) However, she’s got a lot of mistakes to fix before she can do that…Fetching is a story about Friendship, trust and hatred.

[Ellicia · Rating 5 out of 5]

Calling this book wonderful, doesn’t complete the thought. There are simply more words that this book beholds. Thirteen-year-old Olivia Albert has had enough of the popular kids at her school. She and her friends don’t deserve the mean humiliation from queen bee Brynne. Everyday, they deal with this kind of torment. What if the dogs Olivia train can help improve her classmates? Will the dog training techniques on their classmates work? Find out and see if Olivia Albert and her friends go from eighth-grade underdogs to leaders of the pack, only to discover being top dog isn’t all they expected it to be.

[Madyson · Rating 5 out of 5]

i thought that it was a good book

[Small Review]

Exactly what I was hoping it would be! Full review to come.

[Megan · Rating 2 out of 5]

I didn’t even finish this book. I read 100 pages and still felt like it was going nowhere. Most books that I give up on, I read the end to see what happens, but I really didn’t care what happened in this book. I also felt no connection to the other characters, and it felt really unrealistic.

[Katie Fitzgerald · Rating 4 out of 5]

I am a sucker for books set in middle school. I didn't have a happy middle school experience myself - as I think is the case for a lot of people - so I find it especially refreshing when these books take an honest look at the world of middle school students and attempt to translate those universally unpleasant experiences to fiction.

Olivia is our protagonist, and she lives with her grandmother, Corny, who is a dog trainer. Olivia's mother suffers from depression and is in the hospital, and her dad has to spend long hours at work trying to keep the family afloat, so Olivia spends her time helping Corny with dogs, hanging out with her misfit friends at "Bored Game Club", and avoiding probing questions from her therapist, Moncherie. Olivia worries that she may have inherited a "crazy gene" from her mother, and she also endures quite a bit of torment from her more popular peers.

After the popular kids cause her to sit in ketchup in the cafeteria, Olivia decides that enough is enough. Using the dog training techniques her grandmother taught her, she instructs her friends on how to train the popular kids into doing their bidding. It starts out as a means to end the bullying each of the friends endures, but as the project grows more and more successful, it looks as though the former misfits will actually be able to usurp the popular kids' power altogether. The question, though, is whether it's worth it, and whether Olivia has gotten more than she bargained for by meddling with the pecking order.

Bullying is sort of a pet topic for me, because I was picked on as a kid, and I thought the way the adults in my life at that time handled it was pretty pathetic. So I tend to be critical of unrealistic or sugar-coated portrayals of bullying, and thrilled by especially good depictions. In this case, I found myself nodding in agreement and recognition at many points throughout the story. Here's just one example, taken from page 9:

""Now would you like me to call a peer mediator?"

I shake my head no. This is how clueless middle school administrators are. They send the nosiest, most gossipy kids in school out on a ropes course somewhere in the woods, maybe throw in a few trust falls, and stick them right back in the center of everyone's private business."

And the other thing that made me fall in love with this book was the way the author included the little quirks of each character's personality. Olivia, whose mother is absent right now, loves Full House reruns, and especially the episode where the Tanner girls first lose their mom. Joey, who is the youngest in the group and also seems to maybe have a crush on one of the girls, constantly makes "your mom" jokes, which are consistently funny and never get old. Even Brynne, the most popular girl in school has unexpected layers, and secrets she wouldn't readily share with anyone.

This book is a great lesson in self-acceptance, standing up for oneself, remaining true to one's identity, and coming to terms with the past in order to live in the present. Olivia is a sympathetic character, and the decisions she makes in this book, good and bad, feel real, and readers will undoubtedly be able to see themselves in her shoes, and will understand exactly her desires to feel loved, befriended, needed, and sane. Dog lovers will adore the many canine phobias and neuroses experienced by Corny's dogs and the dogs she trains, and budding psychologists will learn a lot about behavior modification, therapy, and the inner workings of the young teenage mind.

I love this book. Kiera Stewart's writing is fresh and contemporary, and the story is infused with just the right amounts of humor and drama. Highly recommended for those girls who are just starting to read YA - nothing too explicit here, and nothing kids would be ashamed to share with their own parents.

[Mackenzie H. · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fetching
by Keira Stewart
Realistic Fiction
296 pages


Fetching is a fictionous tale told from Olivia, an eighth grader at Hubert C. Frost Middle School. Olivia encounters many events inluding popular girls, new friendhips, and dogs. The teen lives with her crazy dog trainer, and grandmother Corny because her parents seperated. Olivia divides the many groups in middle school into categories according to the way they act, for example the toy breeds which are the populars. Even though Olivia is the underdog of school, maybe not for long. When she goes to a training session with Corny she thinks, "Maybe girls are like dogs. If you use the same strategies they'll be nicer or more well behaved." When Olivia starts to "train" one of the most popular girls in the school, Brynne things drastically changed. Oliva started to leave her friends to hang out with Brynne, but also Olivia's training was making Brynne's friends turn against her. Finally Olivia decides to tell Brynne she's been "training" her all this time and things turn from bad to worse. Brynne turns on Olivia and tells the whole school multiple mean rumors about her. In the end, Brynne and Olivia make up, and Olivia has come to realize the consequences of "training" girls.

I both liked and disliked this novel for several reasons. First of all, some of the situations in Hubert C. Frost I could easily visualize or relate to. For example, when Olivia describes a lunch scene with her friends Delia, who wears her hair in front of her face, Phoebe wearing all black and assorted piercings, Mandy the braniac, Joey the lover of food, and Olivia, the very self conscious one. In addition, I liked that Keira Stewart made an analogy using dog training skills on people and seeing how they influenced, or changed the way students st Hubert C. Frost Middle School acted. One thing I didn't like about the book was I wanted to know more about the other "breeds" of dogs that were explained very lightly. I would like to know more about what characters were inside each group (working breed, sporters, non-sporters, herders, terriers, and hounds.) I didn't really understand why Olivia would have told Brynne after all they had been through strengthening their friendship that she "trained" her with dog skills, because I would have predicted that with Brynne's personality she would have hurt Olivia's feelings more after the fact. This was quite an interesting book!

[Karla Nellenbach · Rating 4 out of 5]

Summary:

Brynne Shawnson is the meanest of all mean girls, and Olivia Albert has had just about enough of her, the endless rounds of humiliating pranks and the incessant name-calling. Olivia and her friends have done nothing to deserve such treatment from Brynne and her legion of admiring fans, but that doesn't stop the queen bee from torturing Olivia further.



Normally, Olivia and her friends go for the try-to-ignore/duck-and-cover approach to dealing with Brynne's meanness. That all changes when Olivia's grandmother recruits her into the business of dog training, and the gears in Olivia's head start to turn. If only Brynne and her cohorts were more like the dogs Olivia's grandmother trains. Then, she'd know exactly how to deal with their behavior.



But, wait! That's just the solution she's been looking for. She and her friends will change the way her tormentors behave by using the same techniques employed in training unruly canines. Her brilliant plan works better than even she imagined when soon, it's her and her friends who are now the alpha dogs, shoving Brynne down into the realm of the unwanted. But, will popularity bring Olivia what she really wants?



My Thoughts:

A fun spin on the mean girl gets what's been coming to her forever storyline, FETCHING is...well, for lack of a better word, FETCHING. Fun and silly, but also heart-warming and cheer-inducing, you will be on Olivia's side right from page one when, ketchup, of all things, ruins Olivia's social life. And, it's all Brynne's doing. The WITCH. From that rocky point, things can only get better, right? Well, not exactly. Brynne instigates a few more pranks in which Olivia and her friends are the victims before Olivia's oh-so-fun scheme gets hatched.



And, once the 'training program' is launched, the fun really begins. You will laugh. You will cringe. You will feel a little bad, even for Brynne. Shocker, I know. But, through it all, you will cheer Olivia and her friends on. And, of course, there is a happy ending. I mean, come on, people. This is MG here. Not so much dark and dreary tragedy territory.



My one-sentence summary: FETCHING follows one girl's jump from sitting on the porch to not only running with the big dogs, but leading them.

[M Kurz · Rating 5 out of 5]

I absolutely enjoyed reading "Fetching," and how incredibly real and relatable the characters are. The book was a little like an emotional roller coaster for me. I know at the beginning of the book, I felt really sorry for Olivia and her friends, because they were always being messed with by Brynne and Brynne's friends. Olivia had the idea to use her dog training techniques on the popular kids, so that she and her friends wouldn't be bothered. I was really curious as to how that would turn out. During the beginning process of the training, I was really intrigued, and kind of happy for Olivia and her friends, since things started to go uphill. As the training went on, though, I began to feel sorry for Brynne because the training started stripping her of her friends, confidence, and self esteem. I also began to get angry at the other characters because they were starting to act the way Brynne used to act.

Something that resonated with me from the story was that people are bullies for a reason. Like in Brynne's case, she bullied people because she couldn't relate to anyone about her home life, and it was hard enough to deal with her home life as it was. For example, near the end of the book, after Olivia and her friends completely ruined Brynne's life, there was the student president election that everyone's been preparing for the entire year. Being one of the candidates, Brynne shows mean and embarrassing pictures of Olivia and her friends as part of her speech. Brynne does this for two reasons: one, because Mandy is a fellow candidate and friend of Olivia's, and two, Brynne obviously didn't know what to do about her hurt feelings. Even though Brynne's presentation made me feel shocked and worried, I ended up liking how the story ended.

[Claire · Rating 2 out of 5]

I started this book and put it down, not sure why I picked it back up... but I got interested and started to think, 'this might actually make a decent Middle school read aloud' then the story went sideways again.
The bullies in this book are truly mean, I think Kiera Stewart tries to justify Brynne, (horrible alpha girl)beautiful, funny and absolutely demonic, by painting her mother as card carrying crazy- it doesn't wash; I can find no motivation for her relentless pranks and attacks on her classmates. Or, for that matter why they go along with her.

Olivia is in town living with her dad's mom. Training dogs and going to middle school. Her mother is clinically depressed (in a psychiatric facility)and Dad is working in a nearby town. Olivia is part of a small group of self described losers. They call themselves "Marcies" after someone they think is more loserish than themselves- I have a problem with folks who feel victimized doing this kind of putdown. Anyway, Olivia has a brainstorm as she works with her grandmother training dogs; "Would the training process work on humans in middle school?" This is the meat of the book. The notion that our own self image is a vital element of our projected image and the nature of our relationships. Olivia implements this idea and the practice of rewarding desired behaviors and deflecting negative impulses. Requires discipline and is brilliant.

Olivia's idea reshapes the social hierarchy of the school and this is interesting.

I had lots of trouble with some of the interactions between the members of Olivia's small group of friends. It seemed that they were occasionally as cruel to each other as the bullies they hated.

[Kathy Martin · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was a great story about the ups and downs of middle school. Olivia and her friends are tired of being the social outcasts of the school. When Olivia decides that they should try some of the techniques the her grandmother uses in dog training on their fellow students, they are skeptical but willing to try. And, all too soon, they begin seeing the positive results of their actions. The former alpha dog - Brynne - is now the social outcast and all of the kids are going through changes.

Olivia is torn between the success of her strategies and feeling sorry for Brynne. Somehow she has become Brynne's only friend and lost touch with her other friends. When she wants to mend fences with her friends, Brynne doesn't react well.

This story had all the pain and drama of middle school life - changing friendships, crushes, social embarrassment. It brought back my own memories of those days. It really doesn't matter how far you have come from middle school, some of the trauma remains. It is such a hard time for kids because emotions are so volatile. The story was well-written and the characters were very realistic. I really liked Olivia's viewpoint and her strength coping with all the changes in her life.

Middle graders might be tempted to try Olivia's techniques. Hopefully their results will be better than Olivia's.

[Pamela Kramer · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fetching by Kiera Stewart is a darling mix of middle school, friendship and dogs.

Olivia, the protagonist, is plagued by feelings of inadequacy since her mother's mental illness meant she had to be hospitalized. Olivia feels that she herself is a ticking time bomb -- just waiting for the "crazy" gene to appear -- when she'll be institutionalized also.

Olivia has moved to be with her grandmother, Corny, an eccentric woman who collects stray dogs, trains them, and works training others' dogs. Once Olivia gets over her fear of dogs, she becomes Corny's assistant trainer.

In middle school, Olivia is bullied and tormented by the set of popular girls and one girl in particular, Brynne. The story begins with a disastrous scene when Olivia is tricked into sitting on a packet of ketchup. The obvious humiliation ensues with lots of laughter -- none of it Olivia's.

Olivia's friends are also subject to much the same treatment. and Olivia wants them to get out of the social hole they are in. Mulling this over, she comes to the conclusion that middle schools are inhabited by kids who are much like dogs.

So Olivia gets her friends together and explains her plan.

Read more at: http://www.examiner.com/young-adult-f...

[Hannah · Rating 5 out of 5]

“Fetching” is a great book by Kiera Stewart that I can really relate too. The main character, Olivia, helps her grandmother train dogs. Olivia, is having trouble with the popular girls at school, Brynne and her crew. They are calling her and her friends names as well as playing evil pranks on them. Olivia and her friends meet one day to discuss what they can do about Brynne. They come up with a plan to train their schoolmates like dogs. Reward them when they are good, scold them when they are bad. Soon, she befriends Brynne and they learn each others secrets. But when something happens and everybody turns on one another, everyone must make some sacrifices especially Olivia. I was really hooked on this book because I can really relate to what Olivia was experiencing. Being bullied, and having to make some tough choices. When I was reading this book, I could not put it down because it was so interesting. I didn’t know what would come next. I would definitely give this book 5 out of 5 stars because it can relate to so many people.

[London Ortega-Schmidt · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fetched by Kiera Stewart was a different and interesting book. Olivia who is with a group of unpopular people all of the sudden become popular. But this is because they use an unpopular method to get everybody to like them. Olivia who is the main character owns tons of dogs and lives with her grandmother named Corny. She used a method to get popular the same way she would get the dogs to like her. This is interesting.
I really liked this book because the author was creative with how she wrote this story. This book is filled with friendship (good and bad), dogs, school, and her outside world aka her therapy! I loved how there was something new and different in every chapter. There wasn't much that I didn't like about this book.
I would share this book with anyone who enjoys reading about friendships in school and how to get popular. However, there are some friend breakups along the way. I give this story five out of five stars because I loved this book and I greatly enjoy reading about friendships. :)

[Erin · Rating 4 out of 5]

Olivia and her friends are tired of being at the bottom of the middle school food chain. They constantly get picked on, especially by the most popular girl in school, Brynne. Olivia's grandma is a dog lover and dog trainer and she often assists her grandma during training sessions. Olivia gets the crazy idea to employ dog training tactics on her middle school classmates..and it actually works! All of a sudden Brynne is no longer the alpha dog and Olivia's friends are the popular crowd. Now that everything is different, Olivia makes an unexpected friend and realizes that being popular is not all it's cracked up to be.

I really enjoyed this book. Olivia's voice is very relatable and really funny. Great tween read!

[Lisa Nocita · Rating 4 out of 5]

Summary from Amazon
Olivia has just about had it with the popular kids at school. She and her friends have done nothing to deserve evil pranks and awful name-calling, but that doesn’t stop queen bee Brynne from humiliating them on a daily basis. If only Olivia’s classmates were more like the adorable dogs she helps her grandmother train—poorly behaved, but improvable.

Wait...what if her tormentors' behavior actually could be modified using the same type of training that works on dogs? Olivia and her friends are desperate enough to give it a try. But is it really possible that the underdogs of Hubert C. Frost Middle School could make it to head of the pack?

This was a cute and lively story that will appeal to tween girls struggling to find their place in the pack and dog lovers.

[Isabella Procopio · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fetching, by Kiera Stewert, is about a girl who is already having trouble at school, and it's only the first day. Olivia has been bullied by Brynne Shawson, the mean, perfect president of the school. Everyone wanted to be her. But Olivia has seen the horrible side to her. Olivia and her friends had an idea, a way to deal with the bullies. They tried "dog training" with the bullies. That is just trouble waiting to happen.

I actually enjoyed this book. It was pretty interesting to see dog training be used on actual people. I liked this book because I could relate to it in a way because these girls were also in 8th grade.

I recommend this book for people who like funny, and interesting books. I would recommend this book for people in like elementary school and middle school.

[Charlotte · Rating 4 out of 5]

I would enthusiastically recommend this book to all my upper elementary reading groups and class book clubs. Fetching is a funny, emotional, sometimes silly story of 5 friends that are done being bullied. The social issues dealt with in Fetching are real and kids ages 10-14 will easily relate. The actual bullying that occurs in Fetching might be somewhat extreme, but the emotions and reactions of Olivia and her friends, as well as Brynne's are definitely not. While Olivia's group finds a very unconventional way of handling the bullies that will have you giggling, it's the idea in the end that we're all just tying to fit in, that I think kids will find validating.

[Kat Ebeyer · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fetching was a really good book. It was very realistic, especially since the main characters are eighth graders, and many of the students at STMS experience bullying, which is the main topic of this book. A mean girl keeps pulling awful pranks on Olivia (the main character) and her friends. Both Olivia and her friends want it to stop, so they concoct a plan to use dog training techniques to "re-train" the brains of Brynne (mean girl) and her little minion army. However, Brynne's life practically falls down, and everyone hates her, but Olivia. The two of them became extremely close, and Brynne finally ended all of the bullying, and became one of Olivia's best friends.

[Don't_Trot_and_Text · Rating 3 out of 5]

A descent, well-paced book that has a whimsical plot. I liked the creative plan of Olivia and her friends using dog training methods on the nasty, mean kids that tease Olivia's group. A lot can happen in Middle school, it seems and that's what Olivia and her buddies have shown. I thought that it was a fun read that was written creatively. Not my favorite book, I'm not really even sure why i picked this up at Barnes and Noble. i guess the cover kind of drew me in. I like animal stories, but this wasn't really animal focused.

[Jeff Raymond · Rating 4 out of 5]

I didn't think I'd really enjoy this book much when it was handed to me. It's sort of a mean girls story with a twist - a girl decides she's going to use dog training techniques to condition the rest of the class to like her and her friends and maybe even win the class presidency.

It's a silly premise, but it surprisingly works. A good fun read, and a different take on a somewhat tired basic premise.

[Danette · Rating 2 out of 5]

As far as a middle school story, it was good although at 44, I'm not exactly the target audience, and I'm sure I don't even know what's good to a 12 year old. As a dog trainer though, this was all over the place. Sometimes they used positive dog training techniques and sometimes not at all. A bit confusing on the dog training. I wouldn't want someone using this book as a dog training guide but for a nasty 13 year old it's just fine.

[Sarah Sharp · Rating 2 out of 5]

I think i am too old for this book. I LOVE dogs and i found this at goodwill and read the inside and thought it was a very interesting concept. Now that I've read it, It strikes me as a middle school version of the movie MEAN GIRLS. Same concept really, just equated the kids with dogs rather than wild animals (like in the movie). A little boring for me. I think i would have enjoyed this more if i would have read in high school for sure.

[Lindsey Balk · Rating 5 out of 5]

This one of the best realistic fiction books I've ever read. I'm not huge into realistic fiction, but this book kept the pages turning all night long. Tell your daughters who are going into 8th grade or who are in middle school (preferably 7th-8th) to read this book. I'm sure they will be able to relate to something in it.

[Naomi Oyegue · Rating 5 out of 5]

I THINK THAT THIS BOOK IS VERY CLEVER. THE REASON I THINK THIS IS BECAUSE IT TELLS AND TEACHES US THAT ANYTHING IS POSSIBLE. YES A LOT OF PEOPLE GET BULLIED AND SOMETIMES THEY DON'T STAND UP FOR THEMSELVES. BUT THIS BOOK SHOWS US THAT IF YOU GET BULLIED YOU SHOULD ALWAYS HAVE A PLAN TO PAY THEM BACK WHEN THEY LEAST EXPECT IT. THIS BOOK SHOWS SELF CONFIDENCE AND BRAVERY AND A LITTLE ROMANCE

[Kari · Rating 3 out of 5]

Reminded me of the books I loved to read as a young teenager. I bought it because of the dog theme, but unfortunately, the training described here is based on the disproven and outdated dominance theory that dogs need people to be pack leaders. None of the scenes of actual dog training rang true to me.

But the dynamics of eighth grade? That part was dead on.

[Kimberli · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is so adorable! I love the idea of little ol nerds training the alpha pack to be nice. Of course the story is not totally believable, but it is cute and has a good ending that will give nerds the strength to hold their heads up high when they walk the halls in school.

[Anya Lasagna · Rating 2 out of 5]

I stopped mid-book because I kept needing to put the book down and think, "What in the world am I reading?" The beginning was ridiculous and kinda stupid. I do not recommend this book. But, on the bright side, the cover is really adorable! :D (which was the reason I picked the book out.)

[Lauren · Rating 3 out of 5]

Story that follows a girl who trains dogs with her grandmother. She is tired of being treated terribly at school. So she trains the most popular girls, using dog training techniques, to follow her....

[Er · Rating 5 out of 5]

Really fun and cute book about a teenage girl finding her inner power. I enjoyed it as a grown-up and have recommended it to my teenage nieces. I can't wait for her next book to come out to see what this budding author has in store for us.