Books like Hail Caesar

I have to say that I was very disappointed with this book. The concept of a boy that thinks he is perfect but then realizes he isn't seemed like it could be very thought-provoking and understandable in the way that some people could relate to the story.This wasn't what I got out of the book. The author was trying to make a point, which is fine, but I don't think she did it in the best way. After looking online, I came across some information she had provided about Hail Caesar and why she wrote it. She said she knew a lot of assholes in her life and wanted to know why they were like that. Thu-Huong Ha started this book I think when she was fourteen and finished it a few years later. She was in high school at the time so it is understandable that she would feel this way. Trust me, I am in high school right now and I know people can be assholes. I try not to be, but sometimes I can be really mean.Notice how I didn't say I didn't like the book because of her age. That isn't it. She is young and has promising talent. I am also a young person that wants to write books someday and I applaud the author for getting her work published at such a young age. I think it is great that she found something she wanted to explore further and she turned it into an actual book.I was a bit cautious in going into this book because I have an idea for a book that is slightly similar and I didn't want to accidently borrow too many ideas from Hail Caesar. I don't think this will be a problem though, because Hail Caesar is a lot different from my idea.Hail Caesar is the story of John Miller, aka Caesar. He is a senior in high school and everyone loves him. All the guys worship him and girls throw themselves at him. He is hot, muscular, blah blah blah.But he is also a psychopath. He will randomly start screaming at people if they say something he doesn't like, or he'll start beating people up if they so much as touch him. This is accompanied with growling and grunting that he does throughout the book.I will take a moment here to discuss John/Caesar before continuing. Yes, you will definitely come across guys like Caesar in high school but I think the author made it a little too extreme. It would be hard for a girl to get exactly in the mindset of a guy like Caesar, but I'm a boy that is so different from him that I have trouble imagining living his life. People like Caesar do swear, have sex, and drink alcohol, but Thu-Huong Ha included way to much of this in the book. At times it didn't seem realistic, and John appeared to be more of a stereotype for the most popular guy in high school. He even said that all of the American high school cliches came true for him. But I find it hard to believe that as a freshman, senior girls would want to sleep with him "because they knew what he could do in bed", and older guys wouldn't want to fight him "because they knew what he could do in a fight". Maybe it's changed since 2007 (when this book was first published) but now, people don't tend to like freshman. When I was a freshman last year, the other grades didn't like us and now we don't really like the freshman this year. I wasn't popular or cool, but I could definitely see why they didn't like our grade. When I went to 10th grade, I said I would try to not dislike the freshman because it is unfair for judging someone based on their age. It just seems unreasonable that a freshman could be a super strong jockish sex god.Caesar doesn't care about girls until Eva comes along. She isn't into John sexually so of course he tries to figure out why. They eventually form a friendship and John realizes he had never felt that way about a girl before.I have to say, this book felt like it took forever to finish. It is only 292 pages and doesn't look that thick, but the story went nowhere. Literally, nothing would happen for twenty pages. I got sick of Caesar talking about how hot he was and how much he wanted Corona.I don't care about drinking and sex in books. I don't care about swearing. I try not to swear, but sometimes I do. I don't do it in front of adults or people I don't know and I don't do it online. For those wondering why teens swear, it is usually because we either want to look cool or we are really angry about something. But the excessive swearing in this book felt forced and unrealistic. I hear swearing everyday at school but when you have the f word in every sentence on a page, that is a bit much.Going along with what I was just saying, this whole book is about Caesar trying to be cool. Which isn't always needed because everyone thinks he is a god.The part I think I liked the least about Hail Caesar is the relationship with Eva. You don't get to know her well or connect with her, and it seemed at times like Caesar was trying to explain her to a friend. This is bad when you are reading about someone. Eva was a mystery to John, but she was also a mystery to the reader and that is why there was nothing there in terms of a connection between the reader and a supposedly important person in the book.I would say maybe if this book was turned into a movie it would be better, but it wouldn't. It would be your average American high school movie about a jock that meets a special girl, and I would really rather not watch that.As I am writing this review, I can't help but like the characters less and less. All of Caesar's "friends" (cough people that are using him to gain popularity cough cough) are so boring and don't get explained at all and then John acts like the biggest jerk to them. I thought it was also bad how his family never really got explained. You learn how his mom died, but then he rarely mentions her again. The dad and sisters were supposed to add something to the story but they didn't. And when John's thirteen year old sister was drinking and got wasted, I just rolled my eyes at how poorly executed that whole scene was.I bought this book used from the library for only fifty cents so I guess I can't complain that much. I think it is great how the author wrote a book at such a young age, but this wasn't the best book to put out. It needed a lot more editing and "constructive criticism". I'm not trying to bash it by saying this, but if I ever go to publish a book, I would hope people would be honest with me and tell me if it needs work, because I don't feel this book was ready for release when it was.