Middle-Grade Book Review: 'Bob' by Wendy Mass and Rebecca Stead

There is Little Magic to be Found in "Bob" 

Bob by Wendy Mass and Rebecca Stead revolves around 10 going on 11-year-old Olivia “Livy” returning to Australia to visit her Gran. Five years have passed and Olivia remembers next to nothing about her brief stay in the land down under, which considering she was in kindergarten at that time isn’t surprising. What is surprising is when Livy opens her bedroom closet and comes face to face with the best friend she left behind, and TOTALLY forgot about. A short, green, little man wearing a chicken suit made out of orange pyjamas with chicken feathers glued all over it. Bob, the said little green man in the DIY chicken getup, has been waiting patiently for Livy’s return and is more than a little put out that she doesn’t remember him. Especially because 5-year-old Livy promised to help Bob find out where he comes from and who he is.

Bob has such a charming synopsis. I couldn’t resist picking it up. Quirky imaginary-ish creatures and an emphasis on friendship? Yes, please! I gravitate towards these kinds of middle-grade stories like it’s nobody's business.

Not too long ago I read Crenshaw by Katherine Applegate which has a similar premise: an 11--year-old boy reencounters his imaginary friend in the midst of a family crisis. Said imaginary friend heralds a shift and awakening in said boy’s life written in prose that is so simple but packs a powerful punch.

I cracked open Bob imagining a similar plot and prose to unfurl. I expected another gem like Applegate’s novella. 

Instead, this book is like a packet of oatmeal dumped in a bowl with tap water and cooked in the microwave for way too long. Flavorless, gummy, and sandy brown.

It’s.

so.

bland. 

It’s rare that I feel absolutely nothing for a protagonist. But that’s exactly what happened with this book. I read half of it, 100 out of the 200 pages, and Olivia never once became more than just black words on a white page. Bob is a textbook case of writers relying on telling instead of showing. Olivia has barely any personality and we’re only told about who she is. We don’t actually see evidence of it. Bob, too, was a flat character, non-human as he was he was also plenty of non-interesting. The fantastical, whimsical and comedic personality he could have had instead is reduced to a glum, unintelligent, and baaasic personality. How could this be? How could this premise, this could-be kooky critter and the potentially playful dynamics between the duo be so so gray and pancake flat?! It’s a head-scratcher, that’s for sure.

Mass and Stead’s prose started off with zest and gusto. They had a zippy rhythm, used a series of loose lists and had some fun play on words in the very beginning chapters. 

But that pep quickly shifted into uninspired and underwhelming ramblings. For the whole book, the point of view alternates each chapter between Bob and Livy. 
This must be where the whole having two authors for an extremely small middle-grade book comes to fruition. 

Buuuut the collaboration doesn’t exactly flow. There’s so much unevenness between Livy and Bob’s changing perspectives that it makes reading this constantly frustrating. 

It’s as though Mass and Stead wrote each part separately and then once they were done cut and paste it all together, and voila! a book! 

It’s for those reasons that I couldn’t force myself to finish Bob. I already went above my standard twenty-page rule for DNFing a book because this is only 200 pages. Peanuts compared to some of the lengthier middle grades out there. But when I reached 100 pages in and it still wasn’t doing it for me, I couldn’t justify forcing myself to finish! Bob is a speedy, easy, read but it’s also joyless, colourless, and not entertaining in the least. Maybe I’m missing something. I just don’t see how readers can find this delightful or charming. It’s a cardboardy dramedy that drags and feels too long even though it’s just 200 pages.

For a book written by two authors who, combined, have over a dozen middle-grade books under their belt it’s totally shocking how this book could flop so spectacularly! I’m also baffled at the amount of 4 and 5-star reviews and the praise heaped on Bob on Goodreads and in middle grade reading circles. Bob is disjointed, bland, and running on a subpar plot with characters that never go beyond words typed on a page.

Not recommended.

Try Instead: Crenshaw by Katherine Applegate.

 

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