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Summary: I read the sequel 22 years after I read the original
Review: I read the Chocolate War in the 8th grade. It was one of my favorite books growing up. I read everything else Cormier wrote, until I went to college and "grew up". I had no idea that Cormier wrote a sequel until I came across it on Amazon. I immediately ordered both the original and this sequel. While it is not the book the original is, its definitely worth reading. If you know any teens who have not read these books, it makes a great present. Anybody who read the original remembers the characters and the final, disturbing scene under the lights on the athletic field. The original was about Jerry Renault, but the sequel is about Archie Costello, Obie, and the rest of the vigils. Its a good read, but not the great read that the original is.
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Summary: Beyond the Chocolate War
Review: I think this was an okay book. The only problem that I had with the book was that the begining was boring, but as I started reading more of the book ,it started becoming interesting. It came out to be a good book.
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Summary: Cormier's unrelenting study in cruelty continues...
Review: I used to admire, perhaps envy Robert Cormier's simply but provocatively written insights into the failings and deliberate cruelties of human character. His stories of young punks lording it over kids who just want to "get along by going along" had sufficient elements of reality to justify reading them. However, with his Beyond the Chocolate War (and another doozey called We All Fall Down) I propose that our author has lost his bearings and is squandering a not inconsiderable talent. The man...like many of his anti-"hero" characters...while glorifying the negative and the violent...betrays a pathetic kind of bogus-toughness that a real hero (and better writer) might worthily oppose. Ray Bradbury's "Something Wicked This Way Comes" immediatley comes to mind with its toe-to-toe battle between Goodness & Evil with severe casualties on both sides taken and duly noted. The point is that Cormier has become a one note writer...and its shrillness gets very old. Goodness is hard to portray. Goodness winning even harder. That is why...it is said...Dostoyevsky called one of his most pure-of- heart creations, "The Idiot". The clue to Mr. Cormier's "failure" to move on as it were, is a decisive lack of HUMOR. All the punk-out's of the Archie's and Janza's cannot withstand a single SOUL LAUGH. Bradbury knows this. So does Cormier...perhaps he owes it to his impressive, young audience to let them in on this not-so-little secret too. The book is okay...actually good if this is your ownly experience with Mr. Cormier. Otherwise, the reader needs to cut the author a lot of slack. This single note song we've heard from him before is redundant...not beyond anything. Try Winnie-the-Pooh instead/again.
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Summary: Riveting!
Review: It's great that a sequel came along that is just as good, if not better that its prequel. Beyond the Chocolate War is an example of this. This book is hard to put down with all its twisting plots. The book accurately portrays the thoughts and feelings of high school aged kids, and shows that no one is invincible-not even your everyday Archie Costello!
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Summary: This is one of my favorite books.
Review: Pretty much everything I said in my review of "The Chocolate War" applies here, but in addition I would like to add that I found this book extremely appealing on a very basic level. Archie Costello is the person every one of us wants to be: charismatic, powerful, and always in control. We all secretely want to be master manipulators, to be able to escape the consequences of our own actions. It isn't an appealing truth, but it's there, and this book makes you face it.
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Summary: Beyond the Chocolate War
Review: Robert Cormier herein revisits the scene of his initial Young Adult literary triumph, The Chocolate War. Readers will recall the setting of Trinity High, a Catholic all-boys school set in fictional Monument, MA, and the downbeat ending, as Jerry Renault, the only boy to defy the corrupt powers-that-be, is seduced and destroyed by the false promise of vengeance (Familiarity with The Chocolate War is not a prerequisite, although helpful; Beyond stands on its own).
The Chocolate War posited a claustrophobic world run by fear, where adult authority was indifferent (Jerry's father) or weak (Brother Eugene); women were more or less nonexistent. Violence, and the threat of violence, was the only currency; conformity the only defense against it. In Beyond the Chocolate War, Cormier has broadened his scope; the larger world intrudes, with its adults and girls.
The central character of Beyond is Obie, the assistant to Archie, the undisputed leader of the Vigils, Trinity's secret student organization. The Vigils rule Trinity with an unquestioned quiet reign of intimidation; Brother Leon, the oleaginous headmaster, accepts the Vigils as a sort of unofficial Hitler Youth. The stage is set when Obie finds an interest outside the confines of Trinity and the Vigils: a girlfriend. Obie's relationship with Laurie is all-consuming to him, in the manner of first love. Unfortunately, rumor of his membership in the Vigils, and their awful antics, cool Laurie's interest, leaving Obie crushed and bent on revenge against Archie as the perceived author of his fate.
Archie also faces other challenges. Alarmed by Archie's plot to embarrass Trinity's faculty and bishop, Carter, the Vigils' nominal president, secretly tells Brother Leon. Graduation looms; will Archie have sufficient time to indoctrinate the next generation of Vigils? His protégé, Bunting, is willing enough, but is more brute than Machiavelli.
Meanwhile, Jerry Renault must face his own fear: how does one live in dignity when violence is threatened at every turn? Cormier deftly handles these complex themes. Personal responsibility, ambiguity and the transience of human relationships are explored. Violence still exists, but not to the exclusion of other means of communication. As in life, Cormier provides no easy answers or certainties, only the possibility that hope exists (in equal measure to violence) if one has the moral courage to reach for it.
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Summary: A book is only as smart as it's author.
Review: That's true you know. And for that reason, I would very much like to meet Robert Comier. Beyond the Chocolate War wasn't one book however. It was many books all in one, and each one ended at different times. Each chapter is separate from the next and the previous, in fact, all of them, yet at the same time, they are all connected. No need to explain to you who Archie Costello is, someone else can do that. But I am envious of him. Envious of a ficticious character thought up by a very smart man. Is this the way Mr. Comier is in real life? Bottom line of Archie: No matter what he did, or how bad of it was, he had a way of making you think it was your fault. The characters in the book realize and think that Archie is right, and so does the narrator (whoever that is) but I find this not to be so. Read the book and determine for yourself. A good book.p.s. -- You won't learn anything from this book. --Adam Cortright
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Summary: good reviews for bad books
Review: The book Beyond The Chocolate War was a book that I could not get into it. the book was long and dull it put me to sleep. Some of the parts of the book was funny, but others were bad.This book was one for the worst books I read in a long time.
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Summary: Highschool Struggles
Review: The novel, Beyond the Chocolate War, is the second of two books that provide riveting and heart-breaking stories that take place throughout the high school years. The novel is set in an elite, private, Christian high school for young men. Located within, is the secret society, the Vigils and their calm yet menacing leader, Archie Costello. The Vigils assign deadly tasks to meek students, which keep an undercurrent of discipline, evil, and extreme fear throughout the student body. In the beginning of the book, Archie realizes that his right hand man, Obie, is abandoning him and the Vigils, because Obie realizes that without Archie, his life wouldn't be falling into pieces. Thus, he sets up a plan to end Archie's life in front of the entire school. With the help of a new and lonely teen, by the name of Ray Bannister, and Ray's magic, fool proof guillotine, Obie cleverly is able to get Archie to put his head on the block during the last day of school before graduation. With the guillotine rigged, Obie confidently pushes the button to make the blade slice through human skin.
I would definitely recommend this book, especially to teens. The novel touches on topics such as suicide, loneliness, depression, anger and jealousy, all of which are common problems in the high school years, and the reader is able to connect to it with his or her own past dilemmas.
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Summary: Highschool Struggles
Review: The novel, Beyond the Chocolate War, is the second of two books that provide riveting and heart-breaking stories that take place throughout the high school years. The novel is set in an elite, private, Christian high school for young men. Located within, is the secret society, the Vigils and their calm yet menacing leader, Archie Costello. The Vigils assign deadly tasks to meek students, which keep an undercurrent of discipline, evil, and extreme fear throughout the student body. In the beginning of the book, Archie realizes that his right hand man, Obie, is abandoning him and the Vigils, because Obie realizes that without Archie, his life wouldn't be falling into pieces. Thus, he sets up a plan to end Archie's life in front of the entire school. With the help of a new and lonely teen, by the name of Ray Bannister, and Ray's magic, fool proof guillotine, Obie cleverly is able to get Archie to put his head on the block during the last day of school before graduation. With the guillotine rigged, Obie confidently pushes the button to make the blade slice through human skin.
I would definitely recommend this book, especially to teens. The novel touches on topics such as suicide, loneliness, depression, anger and jealousy, all of which are common problems in the high school years, and the reader is able to connect to it with his or her own past dilemmas.
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