crazy.

 
I read this book in two days. Not because it was titillating but because it was less than 200 pages, geared for a young audience, and while it tried to be profound...it really wasn't. I hated this book. Granted, the writing may have been duped because it was meant for teenage readers and it was translated from German, but the plot-less story just felt like it was trying way too hard to pull off a Catcher in the Rye feel.

Benjamin Lebert, half cripple, arrives at yet another boarding school to try to raise his math grades. He gets caught up in a small group of peers who set out to seek adventure, sex, booze, travel, and the never-ending feeling that life is "so profound." They're riding the bus and one of the boys starts talking about death. They're climbing the fire escape to visit the girls' floor and another boy starts asking what the meaning of life is. They're escaping campus at night and they run into an old man who goes off on a tangent about youth. It's unnatural, pretentious, and lazy. After several months of hanging out with these boys, breaking the rules and randomly asking existential questions, Benjamin still doesn't raise his math grades and has to leave the school. The end.

One thing that confused me? The main character's name is the same as the author's...but the cover of the book says its fiction. Not sure what the intent there was.

It doesn't matter. Don't read this book. Catcher in the Rye is a much better use of your time if you want a coming-of-age, questioning-the-world, lost teenage boy sort of book.