This story was the final one on my previous batch of reviews to do before I started taking a break, which I still intend to do following this, but I decided to read this regardless but at a slow pace. I am slowly becoming more assimilated with my daily routine and life, but I still generally want to reprioritize. I consider reviews to be a community service, so while I want to do it I am becoming comfortable with the thought of focusing on my own story, my own development as a person, etc, over this. Not for a lack of commitment, as the reviews will continue, but as priority of time.

I read the story from beginning to end, which was fairly long, and took some time to think about what I read. I'll be honest, I come up short. While I have some concerns and thoughts, I also find the book with everything from its themes to its execution to be of a grade beyond my abilities. I will explain why. None of the less, I will give it my best shot.

TLDR; An ideological satire of a satire satiring satires satiracally or Lord of Flies: Philosopher edition.

Something to take special note of is that I believe the intended audience is a more specific group than the general population. This is not to say it is limited to this audience, but it is aimed for and written with them in mind. I do not consider this necessarily to be a positive, as it creates limits, but nor is it a negative, because the author knows what he wants to do and sets out to do it. I would like stories to generally be reached out to everyone, but that is my goal, not the authors. For this reason alone, if I wanted to, I could find many problems with the story, but I would also have to disregard just as many critiques because it is all part of the authors plan and my critiques would be pointless, empty, and not helpful in the long run. I do have critiques, but I hope what I find and point out is within the scope and plan the author has in mind.

Main Character: Sacrificed at the Altar - The most immediate and constant thing to take note of is that the story lacks a true and honest to god main character, as we come to know one. Rather it can be said that 'the heart of the school' is the main character as all of the side characters fight over her, and act as her, and change her over the four year time frame the story covers. Every character is a side character that weave in and out of the tale at a reasonably even pace. I have never, in my life, between all of the novels and classics, the fanfictions, the online stories and wattpad unfinished drafts, seen a story that goes out with a goal of making a story with no main character, and know how to do it. Normally a story with no MC falls flat on its face with no driving force forward, but this story overcomes that.

It is a bit of an uphill struggle at first, both creating the momentum of plot and recognition of individuality between the side characters to tell them apart as they all fulfill the same basic role for the first several chapters. They are either students or teachers. Not really much to set them apart until they show and develop over time, nor was there a central theme for them to all interact with. Everyone associates by coincidence of proximity. But once the story truly begins in chapter 7-8, then we develop a central theme to tie them together, and the story really starts to shine. That is not to say to say the first several chapters are by no means pointless, they show us character and relationships starting out the gate, but this is merely a dozen plots and stories that have no connection at war with one another to decide who will become the story. Who will prevail and take command of pacing and where the story goes.

The Main Character is molded and born by their debates and struggles. Sometimes a character takes a step back and others decide the pace and history, and at times another steps in and takes command of the pacing by their actions. The story is as much a ideological conflict as much as a debate and the right to be "Main Character" is really just saying who is in the hot seat at that given moment.

Side Characters: Smashing! - The side characters are many and oh so juicy. They have individuality in every way, whether their origins, outlook, philosophy, and motivation. Their interactions are as numerous and complex as a ball of yarn that is slowly unraveled. They all grow, whether positively or negatively, and their interactions change them from chapter to chapter as they mature over the length of the tale. Any of them are deep enough and motivated enough to become a main character in their own right, and so that creates a tiny competition of sorts where the main character changes from time to time, as I explained before. Though, over time, there are ones who take up the greatest majority of scenes and spotlight. They are all with good and bad traits that are understandably formed from their character and experiences, both experienced before and during the story. Every chapter is evenly paced between scenes changing from one character to another and from scene to scene to the extent this feels more like a sitcom than a typical story. Many chapters are deceivingly slice of life yet progressing the story, so this works very well with the sitcom feel.

Frank - Frank is a character that takes center stage the most. He is an enigma of a human being. At once motivated by a bet and joke, but also compelled to see it through to the end to accomplish something that is a lie, yet is formed into a truth after the fact by his will and influence. He preaches selfishness while being incredibly selfless, yet even the nicest gesture towards others in some way benefits himself. So is he selfish? Is he selfless? Is he a troll? Is he a cult master? Has he drunk his own koolaid? What is his motivation? Power? Influence? Proving a point? Winning a bet? Money? There are reasons to think any, or even all of these, but his own actions and words and thoughts at time contradict or change into another thing, and it is around him that the story focuses the most either directly from his neutral third-person perspective or as the other character POVs interact with him.

John - John is mind-blowingly autistic, I swear. Rigid in his thoughts and patterns, seeking mental health over all things excluding compassion and forgiveness and understanding. Extremely intelligent and selfless to everyone he considers friend, wanting only the best for everyone, but being black and white in his thinking leaves much to be desired as a person. Despite his intellect and pattern recognition fails to recognize where the story is going and follows other theologies, often made as a joke, out of sheer niavete.

There are many many more characters and if I were to talk about each of them we would be here forever, but recognize that each of them is as human as these two and have an influence on the story driven by who they are.

One problem I had that is small, yet proved a consistent problem to me was Ted and Tom. Quite simply they are two friends that start with the same letter, have the same number of characters, and when interacting together seemingly act the same. The result is that every chapter that had the two of them together in the same scene I could not tell the difference between them and kept forgetting which was which and got very confused. Except in the scenes where one was directly dating Regina I kept walking away thinking "which one of them is the rich kid?..." You can call this partially me being stupid and reading the story so slowly, but I have always, always, had trouble differentiating characters apart that when their names are similar over the long term.

Grammar and Word Usage: Smashing! - The author is a teacher and it shows in every facet of the story. The words used are specific to creating a definition that offers more insight than words typically associated with first graders that you see in most stories, and yet from the context are easily understandable. The sentences are long without becoming monotonous because they are handcrafted and sharpened to a razor edge for both mindblowing clarity and smooth prose. The paragraphs also get very long, and while there are questionable times where the topic of thought transitions or stays inconsistent in mid-paragraph, it is rare and doesn't cause me any confusion but one or two negligable occasions.

Anyone who is used to older english classics or more dry reading will feel right at home.

In addition, as a bonus, the story is BRIMMING with references. The references can be to other books, such as "Catch-22" that is a clear and admitted inspiration to this story, or to speeches done by historical figures.

World Building: Sacrificed - This story sacrifices a lot of things. The main character is sacfificed to createa sitcom feel. The WB is also sacrificed, mostly, as the environment is easy to relate to for the 90% of us who have been to public school. There is information given early to set the stage, and through this you come to understand the basic environment of schooling the teachers and students are entering.From there the world building is taken over by the side characters, both literally and figuratively, as they represent every facet of the world by their variety and unique perspectives and they have influence on the WB. You need leaders? You got em. Followers? Plenty. Outside persctives? Timed perfectly. Parents? Got one. Could use more parents, but thats just icing on the cake at this point. Since the side characters were excellent so is this.

Plot: Smashing - The story is a satire of humanistic theology, a warning of the power of chrisma, the corruption of power, and an insight into the slippery slope that is mob mentality. It is a dialogue of the difference between integrity and theology. While integrity is the moral principles of an individual, theology is the moral principles when applied to a group. An individual can know their own circumstances and apply their moral principles to them, but a theology will apply a moral principle to groups regardless of their circumstances. The former makes theology obsolete by its existence and the latter destroys integrity by forcing its will or grows integrity if it accepts competition, reason, and circumstantial adaptability.

If you were to take a room of philosophers and apply the "Lord of Flies" trope to them, this is what you might come out with.

The story starts in the school setting. We get a new batch of students entering their first year with great promise. There is some confusion as to who is who and their individuality, because 90% of the main cast is introduced right off the bat, but the amount of style and tone setting still made it an excellent chapter to get the ball rolling. From ch2-7 it was rather downhill from there. No real plot to follow, but you had the beginning of many different plots. Couldn't really tell which were important or not important. You have a lot of people beginning their school year and their upfront personalities appear. You have people who are found to be prodigies, hard studies, lazy, average, and everything in between. Among them a few students do a lot of coaching in their classes, but there is still generally found to be a lack of integrity facing their education. This lack of integrity creates the perfect circumstances for one of the students who do a lot of coaching, and found to be one of the wiser ones and considered a 'good person' by the other students, to write a theological satire as a joke to tell people how to do better in school and life in general. This occurs in ch7-8 and begins the true story.

All of the students and teachers over the course of the story react to this satire in different ways, some believing, some not believing, some recognizing it as the joke it is, others taking it as gospel. But out of it the writer decides to see how far he can take it and starts an offical school movement. From here you have basically ch8-36'ish. The story covers the span of the high school four-year period as the 'good person' movement takes control, for some ways good, and for some ways bad. The story observes it from a neutral standpoint, not judging it either way, because some people not good become good and some people good become bad. Is it because of the movement or themselves? That is for you to judge. Over the years there is betrayal, scheming, death, brainwashing, and criminal activities alongside friendship, healing, and true human growth.

One thing I wasn't fond of was just how many plots were started and not allowed to go anywhere. Yet, at the same time, I cannot hold the story really accountable to it. It attempts to do a four-year time frame in 40 chapters. Time skips abound as you jump from week to week or month to month, as necessary to keep it going. The pacing cant just stop and focus on every individual little subplot started as dozens of characters interact. So I will take this back 99%. The last 1% is in regards to the counter-club movement started towards the end. This was a massive plot that was started and seemingly dropped by the time skips.

I won't spoil the ending but it was quite good. It is not the kind of ending you typically see or expect, but it still occurs quite naturally as the pacing of the story holds true to itself and brings you to the end whether you anticipated it or not. It is filled with tension and I wonder how people will react to it because while it subverts expectations, many people will consider the subversion to replace it with a result of less quality than expected. Also because of the thing I referenced with the counter-club-movement I wonder if this was the ending the author originally intended or decided to do to keep the story within some kind of time/chapter limit.

Overall I would rate this story a 4.9 smashing out of 5! There is nothing that is a true weakness or flaw to hold it back, but there are enough minor things that I also cannot say with a straight face that it lacks any either. And you know what... I wouldn't change any of them if asked except for how Ted/Tom are named basically the same damn thing! xD Not all flaws are inherantly bad. Some flaws are just part of the charm.

NOW LETS HAVE SOME MEMES! All memes always tell a bit of the story but without context good luck guessing how.