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Nerd Girls: Rise of the Dorkasaurus
Nerd Girls: Rise of the Dorkasaurus
Nerd Girls: Rise of the Dorkasaurus
Audiobook6 hours

Nerd Girls: Rise of the Dorkasaurus

Written by Alan Lawrence Sitomer

Narrated by Angela Rogers

Rating: 3 out of 5 stars

3/5

()

About this audiobook

Award-winning educator and author Alan Lawrence Sitomer's engaging young adult novels have been named among the ALA's Best Books of the Year. This first tale in his planned Nerd Girls series follows 13-year-old self-proclaimed "dorkasaurus" Maureen and her fellow social outcasts Alice and Barbara. When Maureen discovers that the Pretty, Popular, Perfect girls are planning a mean trick on Alice, she decides it's finally time to take a stand. Signing up to compete against the ThreePees in a talent show, Maureen plans her revenge.
LanguageEnglish
Release dateAug 12, 2011
ISBN9781461849988
Nerd Girls: Rise of the Dorkasaurus

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Reviews for Nerd Girls

Rating: 3.125 out of 5 stars
3/5

8 ratings7 reviews

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  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    Nerds and bullies. Pranks and slam books. Just another day in eighth grade. Maureen (Mo) knows she’s a nerd. She describes her friends, Barbara (Bean Pole) and Alice (Q), and herself as quirky, do-well-in-school, socially awkward, and get laughed at by other kids. On the outside, she’s loud and opinionated. On the inside, she’s insecure and dealing with not only the bullies at school but her divorced mom who is now re-dating her re-divorced father. Yeah, figure that one out.Author Alan Lawrence Sitomer’s MG/Tween novel, NERD GIRLS, A CATASTROPHE OF NERDISH PROPORTIONS is a story of friendships, family, and consequences. From locking the Nerd Girls in the booby-trapped art room to booby-trapped cookies, the Three Pees (Pretty, Popular, Perfect Girls), Kiki, Brittany, and Sofes cause trouble. The Nerds plan revenge. Finally, the principal has had enough. He gives them one way they can get out of the punishment they deserve. I don’t want to spoil the fun, so I’m saying no more, except that I laughed. I cried. And I remembered my junior high days, the slam books especially.I think NERD GIRLS will appeal to middle school students, especially girls, that may be going through similar challenges at school and/or at home. The author has captured those in-between years when life is a drama and every event a catastrophe. Every middle school library should have a copy of this novel. Of course you’ll want a copy for your personal library, too. The author provided me with a copy of the book for our Good Reads discussion group.###
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    If you look like a potato, you won't be popular in middle school. But sticking up for a misfit in the cafeteria gets you some friends, and into the school talent show.
  • Rating: 2 out of 5 stars
    2/5
    Nerd Girls: The Rise of the Dorkasaurus is a very predictable (if unlikely) story about three unpopular kids bonding together to bring down the popular clique. They plan to do this by winning the school talent show, which has been dominated by the popular clique's professionally choreographed cheerleading routine for the past two years. The problem, of course, is that the Nerd Girls don't have any talents to speak of. It's hard to figure out who the anticipated audience is for Nerd Girls. It seems to be trying to piggyback on the success of the "Diary of a Wimpy Kid" series, as it's the same sort of humor. However, the publisher is marketing it to an older age bracket (grades 6 and up). Most girls in middle and high school will not appreciate the potty humor and silly name-calling in the story, and boys (who might still appreciate the humor) will not touch it because it's a book about three girls. This book, if it appealed to anyone, might appeal to third-graders, so if the main characters had been sixth-graders, it would have made more sense. Perhaps more problematic than the recommended age range is the writing style, which feels forced and superficial, like a comedian trying his hand at writing for children, without knowing any actual children on which to base his characters' actions (Sitomer is, in fact, a high-school teacher, which makes the failure of characterization and dialogue all the more puzzling). The main character is completely unsympathetic; her every interaction with other characters is marked by sarcasm, name-calling, and a generally unpleasant attitude. It's also obvious that the girl characters are being written by a man, one who does not recognize that there are emotional and developmental differences between eight-grade girls and eight-grade boys. To add to the already numerous problems, the main character merits her "outcast" status by merit of being overweight, but only because she is constantly shoveling junk food in her mouth. When she makes up her mind to exercise and watch what she eats, she immediately starts dropping weight and feeling better. This kind of over-simplifying and stereotyping of overweight people may bother readers who struggle with their own weight, as the message the author is sending is that people are overweight because they are lazy and eat all the time, and if they would just try a little harder, they could easily lose weight. The other two nerdy characters are also stereotyped and one-dimensional: one is an allergy sufferer who totes around some sort of tank (apparently a normal inhaler wasn't funny or dorky enough) which she breathes from to combat allergic reactions. The other character is clutzier than Bella Swan, always falling over or banging her head against things hard enough to raise a lump, but her otherwise perfect parents don't seem to have the brains to take her to an inner-ear specialist and see if there's some physical issue causing this debilitating clumsiness.This book may find a readership among young readers who enjoy scatological humor and don't mind the flaws in the writing, but there are so many better books available on the topic of popularity that it should be easy to pass this one up.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    When I first started reading this, I thought I was going to hate it. The beginning really turned me off. I'm glad I stuck with it however, as there were a lot of really good things about it. I'll start with what I didn't like first. The main character, Maureen, was not that sympathetic. I understand self-deprecation, but Maureen was a little too harsh on herself and everyone else she saw. Also, she didn't really read like a female character. It really did come across as a guy trying his best to get into the head of a tween girl, and it just didn't quite succeed for me. I loved the general story though. Trying to get back at the mean girls is probably not the best motivation in the world, but it worked well in how it gave the Nerd Girls a chance to form true bonds of friendship. I liked that the ending wasn't completely resolved, but it still made me feel good about what happened. I think the idea of acceptance of people no matter their quirks is very important, and I think it was handled really well in this book.Overall, I ended up enjoying the book a lot. That surprised me when I considered how I felt in the beginning. I think that girls will really enjoy the "girl power" in this book, and hopefully it can help them feel better about loving themselves as they are. So over all, I give this book the thumbs up.Galley provided by publisher for review.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    If you look like a potato, you won't be popular in middle school. But sticking up for a misfit in the cafeteria gets you some friends, and into the school talent show.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    Thirteen-year-old Maureen is a self-proclaimed dork. Her hair is brown, her eyes are brown and her body oddly shaped: in her words, she looks like a baked potato. One day Maureen learns that the ThreePees (the pretty, popular and perfect girls) plan to sit next to Allergy Alice at lunch and eat everything Alice is allergic to, hoping for a YouTube worthy explosion. It’s then that Maureen decides enough is enough. She forms her own group called the Nerd Girls, and together Maureen, Alice and Beanpole Barbara take it upon themselves to take the ThreePee’s down a notch or two. The problem is, the ThreePee’s are vicious. The Nerd Girls have their work cut out for them if they think they are going to overthrow this regime.In Nerd Girls, Mr. Sitomer gives us a younger version of Mean Girls. There are a lot of situational similarities between this book and that movie, but it didn’t stop me from enjoying it. Maureen is a funny, self-deprecating narrator, and despite a few minor annoyances, I couldn’t help but like her. The “ThreePee’s” are vicious, caustic and annoying which is exactly the way I like my “mean girls”. Overall, I liked the book for the most part, but it felt recycled, like I’d read it before. It wasn’t as fresh as I think it could have been. Still, I think young girls will enjoy it, though it may appeal more to the younger end of the middle-grade spectrum.(Review based on an Advance Reader's Copy courtesy of NetGalley)
  • Rating: 2 out of 5 stars
    2/5
    From June 2011 SLJ:
    Gr 58Self-proclaimed dork-a-saurus Maureen tries to stay below the radar of the ThreePees (Pretty, Popular, Perfect) Kiki, Brittany, and Sophia. But when they have fun with Allergy Alice by sitting next to her at lunch and eating foods Alice is allergic to, Maureen shocks herself by grabbing the peanut butter-laden sandwiches and stuffing them into her own mouth to protect Alice. Of course, Brittany gets the whole thing on video, and Maureen's heroic act becomes fat-girl YouTube fodder. As if that weren't bad enough, Alice is so grateful that she and Beanpole Barbara start joining Maureen at lunch and decide that the trio should take on the ThreePees in the school's annual talent show. Though she's initially resistant to their overtures of friendship, Maureen finally agrees that the ThreePees need to be brought down a couple of notches when their harassment shows no sign of stopping. As the newly christened Nerd Girls prepare for their act, Kiki, Brittany, and Sophia ramp up the pranks, and in the final hours before the talent show, things look bleak. While the narrative includes flashes of humor and unexpected twists, slapstick events and caricatured characters prove distracting. Sitomer's middle-school characters' voices never click: phrases such as "meanie snobs" and a tendency to give every character a nickname are too juvenile for 14-year-olds. Maureen's often-caustic narration will keep readers at arm's length. What could have been a touching, clever friendship story is an additional purchase at best.Kim Dare, Fairfax County Public Schools, VA