***NO SPOILERS***

What School's Out is supposed to be about: a class of sinister freshman students with murderous tendencies. What it is instead: 321 pages of tangents, plus five pages of an unfocused, yawn-inducing main plot. This is such a frustrating book. Here are just some of the tangents I was subjected to while impatiently waiting for the main story: a detailed memory of a punk rock concert; the narrator's ramblings about the television shows he likes to watch, the various sounds he can hear from his apartment, and his oddball neighbors; a television show the narrator liked to watch as a child, with special mention of the show's theme song; excessive detail of a home's gardens and property; and a bizarre out-of-the-blue incestuous encounter between the narrator and his sister.

Just when Dufosse focused on the main plot, just when the pace finally quickened the slightest bit, he switched back to some completely irrelevant, utterly boring, pages-long tangent. The pace then reverts to a snail's crawl. I was desperate for more details--about the students, the dead teacher, the history the students had with each other, something having to do with the main plot line.

Equally problematic is that School's Out tells but doesn't show. A few characters describe these students as "peculiar" and "scary," but the students are never shown actually doing anything criminal; my curiosity never was piqued much. I was supposed to accept these kids are threatening and clannish simply because they are. As for the few creepy student-teacher moments...they're laughably underwhelming--at least to modern readers desensitized by stories of real-life school massacres.

The characters in this book are so cardboard, though, that I'm not even sure seeing them commit a crime would be so frightening. The most dimension Dufosse gave each student, for instance, was a first and last name--at one point even listing all twenty-four full names--as if full names are the most important kind of characterization. The students barely even speak. Additionally, this book has at least twelve extraneous non-student characters; they in no way relate to the main plot or serve any purpose. It feels almost as if Dufosse mistakenly believed that to achieve a certain level of literary sophistication he had to cram his work full of characters.

Stylistically, School's Out is flawed. Numerous sentences are rambling and convoluted to the point of nonsense. I'm not sure whether the fault lies with the translator or the author. Regardless, it's torture:

"The well-proportioned quasi-neutrality of her silhouette, of her appearance, even in a seated position, the fragile rectitude of it all, evoked in me an irreversible negation, flaws concealed beneath a deceptive classicism."

Gobbledygook like this completely halts the pace about every two pages.

The ending is supposed to be dramatic and shocking but is meaningless. Again, because Dufosse barely focused on the main plot and failed entirely to flesh out his main characters (and show them acting criminal), the ending has zero impact--and doesn't even make sense.

I can't praise a single thing about this book. As a short story or novella, this tale could have turned out beautifully, as Dufosse would have been forced to home in on main characters and main plot only. The premise is provocative, and it's obvious Dufosse wanted to create something chilling and memorable, but unfortunately he failed entirely in its execution.

Final verdict: Throw out School's Out.

This book was actually kind of weird and strange to follow...it felt a little scattered all over the place. I didn't like some of the sentences in the book such as, "I'm quite convinced that hospitals are swarming with people with a secret grudge against humanity (pg.7)" because i am a nurse so i thought that line was a little bit of a hasty generalization regarding healthcare workers. And it has gross imagery such as, "An olfactory spectrum between decomposing vegetation and menstrual discharge.(pg.112)"?????? in reference to the odor of a fake miniature of a monkey. I was like really? But in spite of these weird moments, when he interacted with the kids I enjoyed it because the dialogue/novel tended to be more organized at those points...I also liked the authors thoughts on loneliness and aging. My favorite line in the story came from one of these interactions with the teens, "The important thing for us is to go unnoticed, not to fight to become adults, which is the idea that drives most children these days.(pg. 297)" Overall the book had a VERY unexpected ending that left me like "WOW!" so i guess after getting past the frenetic nature of the protagonist's thoughts and experiences it was all worth it for the ending. So if you like stories that are wild and confusing with great endings...this is the book for you!

I came across this book at the library a while ago and thought "why not?" Hence, I borrowed it and started to read it. At first, I wasn't impressed at all. I found the reviews saying it was a thrilling read bla, bla, bla were a bit exaggerated. The author seemed to have some kind of megalomania going on with a lot of "difficult" words in like every sentence. Interestingly enough, I continued reading. The plot was at the point quite boring and the book was being a really slow read. It was actually just standing in my bookshelf for a while, nothing made me want to read it until I just decided to get rid of it. That's when it started getting better. Suddenly, some interesting characters were introduced and the mystery which the book evolves around was starting to become a real mystery. Earlier it had just seemed like a teacher's obsession. Hmm, maybe I should talk about what the book is about? Let's do that.

30-ish-year-old teacher Pierre Hoffman takes over a school class after the mentor died in what looks like a suicide. The class has a strange way of acting and Pierre realises something has got to be wrong with the class. He comes up with the conclusion that the class murdered their old teacher and it developes into his own little detective's show. Throughout all this he has some philosophical moments where he ponders everything that he can come up with. When he is not pondering och doing detective's work, he is observing people's behaviour and making assumptions about them which are almost always spot on.

Well, well. Let's get to the reviewing stuff. I was a bit annoyed by the "Hey! Let's put all kinds of pro-words into this book so that I look really smart!"-mentality. The funny thing was that it reflected in both the author's style and in the main character. Coincidence? All in all, I give it a three. To give it a two would be too hard as it was more than OK but it wasn't good enough to deserve a "I really liked it". I disliked it becouse of the excrutiatingly slow pace and the lack of a good plot but liked it because of the unique style and all the things that go around the plot, the backgrounds, descritions and thoughts about I-don't-know-what.

If you have some patience, read this book. It's not a masterpiece, far from it, but it's worth a try.

Thought-provoking; my first look at French literature.

Don't read it. It drags on and on, is chock full of not even appropriate GRE words, overwrought and useless metaphors... just a huge, anticlimactic drag.

A bit weird for me.

It was translated from the French into British English, and Americans have to do the second translation mentally, which, in addition to the loads of unfamiliar cultural and political and philosophical references, makes it a tough read for such an unassuming little book.

The story ppppllllooodddssss along. By the end, I just kept hoping that the kids would put him out of his existential French misery.

As several other reviewers have pointed out, the author spends a lot of time on character studies of peripheral characters such as faculty spouses and parents of victims, but only sketches the adolescents in quick, broad strokes.

On a positive note, the author has a different very different voice then one might encounter in most American and British novels, and some uniques turns of phase amused (and startled). But not enough to recommend plowing through this long, dreary, rainy tale.

With this book I honestly just felt like I kept going in circles until I finally got annoyed and decided to put it down.

A análise do lado negro das interações escolares conferem algum interesse à narrativa e leva-me a reconhecer o valor da obra, contudo, o drama pelo drama não funciona, é preciso desenvolver-se empatia com as personagens, e não tendo conseguido isso não posso achar este livro mais do que mediano. O género de história que talvez fosse moderadamente interessante num telejornal ou documentário, mas não num livro.