Ever think that there is just no one out there who has it worse off than you? Meet Steve York. His parents are divorced, he lives with his father, whom he resents, he finally falls in love, but she goes for another man (the teacher they most respect, nonetheless) and he has so given up on school that he has turned to drugs. But one man thinks that maybe there is still something of Steve York's life to be salvaged.
Summary
Rats Saw God follows Steve York, through his senior year of high school. He is simply trying to graduate. After spending the majority of his junior year at a new school and mostly stoned, Steve is now at the mercy of the guidance counselor, DeMouy, to see if he’ll graduate. DeMouy gives him an ultimatum: write a 100-page paper telling how he got to where he is today, and he’ll graduate. Through this paper, which the reader reads piece by piece as Steve writes it, we get to see how Steven’s interactions with friends and family really lead him to the spot he is in as a senior.
Steve York is the son of famed astronaut Alan York, and because of that, it’s all anyone knows him by. Steve is tired of his identity being tied to his dad, so he begins to rebel. He joins a group at school called GOD, Grace Order of the Dadaists, a group bent on rebelling against any order in society. Through this group, he meets some of his greatest friends, Doug, Veg, Missy, as well as the girl who will soon be the love of his life, Dub. Dub, which is short for ‘W,’ which is short for Wanda, is a perfect match for Steve: she’s sarcastic, she’s witty, she’s smart, and her and Steve spend the majority of their sophomore year head over heels for one another.
All of that changes when they both enroll in a creative writing course. Sky, the cool teacher of the course who lets them call him by his first game, has all of their respect and is actually teaching them literature that they like. However, things start to fall apart when Dub starts pulling away from Steve, and starts gravitating towards Sky. Now Steve has to come face to face with who he really is now that Dub is gone. He must decide if he is going to go back to his dead end friends from GOD, relinquish the fight he’s been fighting his whole life an accept his role as Steven York, the astronaut’s son, or if he’s going to look deeper inside to discover who he was truly meant to be.
About the Author
Born in 1965 and graduating from high school in the '80's may put Rob Thomas in his forties, but that doesn't mean that he's out of touch with his audience. Famed both as a young adult author and the creator of the television series Veronica Mars, Rob Thomas has proven again and again that he does still know what it's like to be a teenager. He is currently rumored to be working on a Veronica Mars screenplay. He is engaged and has one child - a daughter, Greta Mae Thomas.
Laura L. Johnson - Welcome! I am a secondary English teacher who also does freelance writing on the side. I currently teach at a small private school in the ...
