Title: Freshman for President

Author: Ally Condie

Series: Stand-alone

Genre: Contemporary (YA)

Pages: 304 Pages (Paperback)

Original Publication Date: June 13, 2008

Overall Rating:
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Summary from Back Cover

So what if Milo’s only fifteen years old, and that he’ll have to balance running a presidential election with school, his lawn mowing job, soccer practice, and trying to understand girls?  There are times in life when you just have to go for something, no matter how impossible, and this is one of those times. Not only does he have to redefine who Milo J. Wright really is, but he also has to decide what winning and losing really mean.

My Thoughts

My friends and I decided to read this book because we met Ally when we went to the literacy symposium to meet Nancy Turner.  Ally was in one of the classes we attended and because she’s a local author, we thought it might be fun to read one of her books and have her come to one of our parties.  (It’s the first time we’re actually doing an actual book club gathering. :lol: )

I enjoyed Freshman for President a lot more than I thought I would.  I honestly thought I was going to hate it because I just wasn’t that interested in the topic.  Even though it’s not one of my favorite books, I think it’s well written, fun, original, and unique.

One of the reasons I do like the book is because it didn’t sugar coat real-life issues.  When I was younger, I read a few Jack Weyland books.  (For those of you who don’t know who Jack Weyland is, he’s an LDS author.)  The books always seemed too sappy and life’s issues were always solved in an unrealistic amount of time.  I stopped reading his stories because I was annoyed that the characters’ lives were suddenly happy with no more issues or problems.  Unfortunately, life isn’t like that.  Even in you solve a problem, it takes a long time to heal from a traumatic experience and you’ll always have more trials to deal with.

I know you’re probably asking why I love the Twilight Saga so much then.  Fantasy, science fiction, and romance books are different, in my opinion, because they don’t presume to be “real life” stories so you expect the unrealistic time frame or “happily ever after.”  Jack Weyland’s books, on the other hand, profess to be “real life” stories coupled with a moral and advice from religious principles to help you cope with life’s obstacles.  I’m not complaining about the coping methods; I’m complaining about the unrealistic time frame and the “happily ever after” once the trauma has been dealt with.

What does this have to do with Freshman for President?  Milo, his family, and his friends have to deal with a lot of “real life” experiences and problems in the midst of running this presidential campaign.  By the time the book’s over, they’re still going through some of the problems and they’re still healing from them.  There was no yeah-I-had-a-terrible-thing-happen-to-me-but-because-I-found-something-to-live-for-I’m-completely-back-to-my-normal-self-again crap.  The book gave me hope for those characters, but I knew they still had a rough time ahead and I found that refreshing.