Macomb
Jr-Sr High School Book Reviews
By A.C. LeMieux
When I was in the library I found a book called The TV Guidance Counselor
and decided to read it. I couldn’t put the book down and finished it within
two days. I really enjoyed reading it.
The book started out with a kid named Michael Madden, whose parents had recently been divorced. He was very depressed by it, and his father was leaving on a boat to race around the world and he was supposed to take pictures since he was a photographer. Before his father left, he gave Michael a Nikon F2 camera. Michael treasured it because it was pretty much all he had left of his father. Ricky Bolton is Michael’s best friend and he likes to pull pranks on people, especially Victoria Kaminsky, whom he has a big crush on. Michael eventually gets a job at a local grocery store when the move. He meets a lot of new people in there, including Eileen, Carl, and Uncle Fritz, all of them work at the store. Michael begins to notice a woman named Janey Riddley who will come in the store, look at the tv guides and leave. After he tells Ricky about her, he nicknames her the tv guidance counselor. Michael starts taking a photography class and starts to date a girl named Melissa Ryan. Michael starts taking pictures of everything, seeing things through the lens of the camera tricks him into thinking he’s not there. He begins to distance himself from things and people. Eventually he takes pictures of Janey Riddley and he scares her, she runs out into the parking lot and gets hit by a car. She ends up being alright, and Michael wins an award fro taking such a good picture. Michael eventually begins to go a little crazy and thinks of all the people in his life who are either making him angry or depressed: his mother, father, Ricky, Melissa. All the stuff takes him over and he ends up jumping off a bridge. He wakes up in some hospital and Doc Sherman is there trying to see what caused him to jump off the bridge. He discovers that Carl is the one who saved his life and pulled him out of the river. He thanks Carl, and at the end he walks across the bridge and he’s all better.
The main character is Michael Madden, he is a kid who has a lot to deal
with in his life and no one to talk to about it. Because of this Michael kind of
snaps and he ends up jumping off the bridge. I can relate to this because I too
am having problems in my life. My parents were recently divorced and I have been
trying to cope with that. Michael and I have the same problem because there
really isn’t anyone I can talk to either. It’s sometimes hard to handle it
all. That is how I relate to the main character in this book.
I think that you should keep this book in your library because it is an excellent book that should be read. I believe that anyone who reads this book will enjoy it and not be able to put it down. A. F.
This page was last updated November 12, 2001.
Page design by Nancy Bell. Copyright © 2001, Macomb High School