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I am a Genius of Unspeakable Evil and I Want to be Your Class President

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Author: Josh Lieb
Publisher: Razorbill
Category: Book

List Price: ~~$15.99~~
Buy New: $9.97
as of 11/21/2009 07:23 PST details
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New (25) Used (10) from $8.86

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Media: Hardcover
Reading Level: Young Adult
Pages: 304
Number Of Items: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.9
Dimensions (in): 8.4 x 5.7 x 1.3

ISBN: 1595142401
EAN: 9781595142405
ASIN: 1595142401

Publication Date: October 13, 2009
Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours

Features:

•	ISBN13: 9781595142405
•	Condition: NEW
•	Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.
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Editorial Reviews:

Product Description
Family Guy meets Election in this hilarious young adult debut!

Twelve-year-old Oliver Watsons got the IQ of a grilled cheese sandwich. Or so everyone in Omaha thinks. In reality, Olivers a mad evil genius on his way to world domination, and hes used his great brain to make himself the third-richest person on earth! Then Olivers fatherand archnemesismakes a crack about the upcoming middle school election, and Oliver takes it as a personal challenge. Hell run, and hell win! Turns out, though, that overthrowing foreign dictators is actually way easier than getting kids to like you. . . Can this evil genius win the class presidency and keep his true identity a secret, all in time to impress his dad?

Customer Reviews:

Showing reviews 1-5 of 11

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Funny, but just okay... November 21, 2009
Sarah Woodard (Bremerton, WA)
Oliver Watson pretends to be stupid. He lives with his parents. His mother is there for his every need and his father is emotionally detached. Oliver is the third richest man in the world and he is also an evil genius. He wants to only do one thing. He wants to impress his dad. When his father makes a wise crack about the school election. Oliver takes it as his personal challenge to win the school election. Turns out, though, that overthrowing foreign dictators is actually way easier than getting kids to like you. Can this evil genius win the class presidency and keep his true identity a secret, all in time to impress his dad?
I found Oliver to be a funny character. The problem is that I did not see as much depth as I wanted from him. He reminded me a lot of an older version of Dexter from Dexter's Laboratory. The plot was interesting and entertaining. It was slow and the plot dragged on for a bit. It was a fairly original book that had the fun and snark that I wanted from this sort of book. Lieb was a great writer and I am excited to see more from him in the future. This book is a good middle grade and it is worth checking it out.

4 out of 5 stars

Entertaining; imaginative. November 17, 2009
A. Breaux (Grand Junction, CO)
This is a great book to delve into at the end of the day. It's very entertaining and the author has an expansive imagination. Highly recommended.

4 out of 5 stars

Warms my Cruel Heart November 13, 2009
Gally Lines
A quick, witty, satisfying read. I couldn't put it down! Anyone who's ever felt like their peers were too dumb to appreciate genius in the workplace or at school will like this book. Great for young and grown adults.

1 out of 5 stars

Don't Buy the Hype November 1, 2009
J. Baxt (San Diego)
0 out of 8 found this review helpful

You know those movie trailers that contain every interesting moment in the movie? The best part of this book is the title. Don't be confused by your love of the Daily Show, there is nothing funny about this book.

4 out of 5 stars

The Paradox of Youthful Evil October 25, 2009
Martin Asiner (Jersey City, NJ)
1 out of 1 found this review helpful

In I AM A GENIUS OF UNSPEAKABLE EVIL AND I WANT TO BE YOUR CLASS PRESIDENT, Josh Lieb has created an inverted gestaltic world inhabited exclusively by the one dimensional drones that may in fact represent reality. Behind this facade of inanity lies some real creative genius, the "genius" of the title, a seventh grader named Oliver Watson. In Oliver, Lieb has borrowed liberally from other sources of the enfant terrible: the golden haired uni-mind children from the film, VILLAGE OF THE DAMNED, the monstrous seven year old Anthony from the TWILIGHT ZONE episode who has become ruler of his world, and even from Piggy in LORD OF THE FLIES. There is a tendency for adult readers to gloss over the premise that a ten year old fat boy could rule the world by proxy. After all, the saying that one might be the power behind the throne is well-established and even sincerely believed by many. The problem though lies less in the convoluted mind of Oliver but more in the collective minds of the assumed audience. Given that the picture on the dust jacket is a sliced in half photo of a pudgy pre-pubescent youth, it is not likely that many adults will look within. It is more reasonable to assume that the reader will be a middle school student whose notions of good and evil and the Way That The World Works are still largely unformed and uninformed. Such a reader will look at Oliver as more or less a kid like him or herself, more a difference of degree than in kind. The reality is more prosaic and harder to spot. Oliver may look like your run of the mill goofy kid, but he no more is like that than an edible toadstool is a poisonous one. Oliver speaks in the kidspeak of his age when addressing his family and peers, but the moment that he speaks to his adult flunky, Lionel Sheldrake, his vocabulary and tonal inflections assume Olympean proportions. And therein lies the paradox of the book. Children who read this book must maintain a double perspective on Oliver. When he speaks to Lionel, he grows metaphorically speaking, to be the very adult institution that the book so clearly lampoons. It is only when he communicates with his peers and family that he shrinks and becomes more accessible. Since most of the book deals with the nitty gritty of life as a picked on class clown by schoolyard bullies of various stripes, a youthful reader may fast forward the adult conversation with Sheldrake and focus on the monumental insecurities of middle school angst that Oliver can whisk away in a heartbeat. Further, Lieb provides some humorous variations on scholarly footnotes that may impel readers to pick up as if by linguistic osmosis the very critical reading skills and cultural literacy that educators complain is so lacking in our curriculums.

This is not a plot driven novel. The drive to be class president is the only plot glue holding the strands together. The focus is on the world view of a boy who sees his universe through the mutated senses of a genetic freak of nature, and it is his perceptions that set the tone of a world weary adolescent who, like some shrunken Alexander, complains that he has no more worlds to conquer other than to be class president. I recommend this book but with the proviso that a well-read parent may wish to chat with that parent's child about the surprisingly adult themes that are intertwined with the seeming childishness of a boy who is far more than he seems.

Showing reviews 1-5 of 11

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