Ray Villareal

Thirteen-year-old Lon Chaney Rodriguez was named for an old horror movie actor, as he and his dad shared a love for horror movies his mother didn’t understand. His dad drank a few too many beers after he lost his trucking job, which really bothered his mom as she had to work extra hard as a security guard to make up the difference in their income.

Read the rest of the review on my blog: rel="nofollow" target="_top">https://shouldireaditornot.wordpress.com/2015/03/16/on-the-other-side-of-the-bri...… (mere)

The story “My Father, the Angel of Death” is written in a contemporary realistic fiction genre. The language of the book is simple; therefore, it would be appropriate for the reluctant readers. I think that the boys would like this book even more than the girls, due to the fact that the main character of the story is a seventh-grade boy, named Jesse, whose dad is a wrestling world champion, Mark Baron, also known as the Angel of Death. Jesse describes the events from his point of view and that makes the story more personal and appealing.
At the beginning of the book we get to know that Jesse just started a new school year in yet another new school in San Antonio, Texas. Due to the fact that Jesse’s dad was travelling all year long while participating in different competitions, Jesse had to constantly change schools; this was his 10th school since he started in Kindergarten and he hated that. He was dreading the fact that his peers would soon find out who his dad was and their reaction to it would most likely be the same as it was everywhere he went; they would want to be his friends. The thing was though Jesse was not sure if they wanted to be his friends because of him, or because they were obsessed with his dad. In fact, wherever Jesse’s family went; they were always surrounded by fans and that gave them very little privacy. Most classmates thought that Jesse was the luckiest guy in the world, because his dad was so famous. Jesse didn’t think that way. In fact, his life was pretty miserable and his parents’ relationship was falling apart, because his dad was rarely home.
At school Jesse had to deal with a lot of issues as well. Once everybody found out that Jesse’s dad was a celebrity, one of Jesse’s teachers, decided to use her power to blackmail Jesse to get his father to make a public appearance in school. She threatened to give Jesse an F, if his dad did not come to school, but if he did show up, she promised to automatically change it to an A. Another issue that Jesse had to face was his inability to make friends; he didn’t trust people, because he had a fear of being used by them. In addition, Jesse had some unpleasant encounters with three school bullies Manuel, Chester Leonard, and Hugo Sanchez, who kept intimidating kids in school and pushing them around. On one of the occasions, Jesse rescued Sarah Young, the girl he had a crush on. Even though Jesse really liked Sarah, he wouldn’t admit it to her, because he was not sure if she liked him back.
all in all, I enjoyed reading this book. The setting and the characters in the story faced problems and possibilities that are within the range of what is actually possible in real life. The issues that were brought up in the book such as finding friends, parents relationships, having a crush on somebody, have a special appeal to the young readers. Good book, recommend grades 5-8.… (mere)