27 ratings (4.44 avg)
2 reviews

Ethan Balogh

Add friend

https://www.goodreads.com/JEtsrock22

Ethan’s Bookshelves

to-read‎ (6)

currently-reading‎ (2)

read‎ (25)

Stats | More…

Ethan is Currently Reading

Ethan Balogh is currently reading

The Wave

by Morton Rhue

bookshelves: currently-reading

Reading for the 2nd time

read in December 2013

Rate this book

Clear rating

1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars

Ethan Balogh said: " The Wave. By Todd Strasser
The Wave by Todd Strasser begins in the small town of Palo Alto, California at the st-peter high. The book follows three characters; Ben Ross (the teacher), Brain (the jock), and Laura (the straight A+ student).

During a soc The Wave. By Todd Strasser
The Wave by Todd Strasser begins in the small town of Palo Alto, California at the st-peter high. The book follows three characters; Ben Ross (the teacher), Brain (the jock), and Laura (the straight A+ student).

During a social class Ben Ross shows his students a video about Hitler and the Nazis for the World War Two unit they are studying. ------ asks him why people would follow such a evil person as Hitler. Ben decides that the best way for his students to learn is to create a group where he is the leader and gets his students to follow him. He creates a group called The Wave.

I found that when Strasser talked about Ben, he kept changing the name. For example, on page 12 Todd said, “Mr.Ross was going to show his students a documentary on Hitler and the Nazi party.” But then on page 14 in the same classroom he said, “Ben Ross replied to the students.” I found it kind of confusing. I also really did not like how Strasser jumped from scene to scene; I felt like he did not go into enough depth of what happened in each scene. An example of this is on page 46, “Ben was so caught up in his research he forgot what time it was. Brian was thinking about The Wave the whole way to school.” My thoughts were, “wait what happened, I thought that Ben was staying up late, did he complete everything he needed to?” I could not believe that Strasser just changed the seen like that. The worst part is that was not the only time he did that. I actually counted how many times I spotted this narration. Strasser did this 20 times. That is 20 too many.

I found, however, that Strasser selected a superb choice of words. An example of this superb selection was on page 67, “Mr.Ross felt that he had transformed his class. Instead of late assignments and snarky comments there were intelligent comments.” Todd showed his exceptional selection of words here because he changed the words making the book more interesting. Todd did this multiple times during the book and I thought that it helped to spice things up.

Overall, I am conflicted about how I feel about this book. I thought that the storyline was interesting, but I did not like how the author played with it. The only reason I kept reading this book (besides the fact that I had to) was because I found the storyline really interesting. There were really unique characters that I could connect with because they all had a interesting personality. I would give this book a 2 out of 5 star rating. If you are a history buff or are want to try something new I would recommend this book. Also you may enjoy the book if you are into a tragic story. ...more "

Dec 16, 2013 08:23AM · see review