★★★★☆ Brief review of Ungifted by Gordon Korman​​
I think Amazon had a review that said if you’re a fan of Louis Sachar, you’ll love this book by Gordon Korman. I think that Korman has been writing great stuff for so long that it’s really more appropriate to say that if you love Gordon Korman, you’ll probably like a lot of Louis Sachar.
Like all Korman’s books, this one has a lot of heart. It wasn’t quite as laugh out loud funny as some of his other efforts, but it’s definitely got some great humor.
Typically I don’t like narratives that are told from multiple viewpoints, but Korman manages to pull it off incredibly well by starting each chapter with a title that uses an “Un-word” followed by the narrator and their IQ score. As a result we also get a much more nuanced picture of all of the characters which are incredibly well done.
As one of the “smart” kids growing up, I wish this book had been around to have read then, but it’s still great now and everyone is sure to appreciate it. While the protagonist is a boy, I really appreciated that there was lots of great female representation here.
​​

Syndicated copies: