MunMun's the Word

MunMun by Jesse Andrews.
When I read that this book came out this month I was soooo excited.  Jesse Andrews is a brilliant writer.  I expected madcap humor and razor sharp wit.

I mean, here's the set up.  In an alternate world, the amount of wealth you have - Munmun - determines how BIG you are.  The poor are as small as rats.  But the very, very wealthy are as tall as skyscrapers.  How cool is that!

I was game.  Warner, our narrator is a littlepoor, the poorest rank or class of citizenry.  Since his father was killed when a boy - probably a Middlerich because he was normal sized - running from a bully stepped on Warner's dad, Warner, his older sister, Prayer, and his crippled mother, must come up with a way to get Munmuns and up their scale.

Plan 1:  Meet a nice Middlerich or even Middlepoor fellow in Dreamtime and get him to marry Prayer.  Confused yet?

See, in Dreamtime, everyone is the same size regardless of their size in Reallife.  PLUS, Warner makes the BEST dreams and he can include all kinds of people.

Plan 2:  Go to Middlerich Law School and get a law student to fall in love with Prayer.  So, off they go.  So does Usher, a Littlepoor fellow who is so in love with Prayer.  Usher can read; Usher is strong; Usher has a terrible stutter.

So when Plan 2 explodes in pieces, I stop waiting for the storyline to become funny.  Do you know why?  Because Warner's situation was just too real - as in REALLY real; as in change size to color or other differences and you have our life, right here, right now.

Littlepoors are our inner city residents, black, hispanic, just not WASP.  Everything is stacked against them and every time they find a way out, it gets blocked or taken away. (I know - huge generalization!)

So around the time that Warner gets into the home of a Big where he will go to school with MiddleRich's, I turned to the ending in hope....

I don't even remember what I was hoping for.  I am curious as to how Warner got where he ends up but I think I need a lot of sunshine and silliness before I can dive into the Yewess (their country) again.

People are going to be talking about this one, fersure.  I can't stop thinking about it and I didn't even read the whole book.