The novel includes stories of about fourteen different people writing their own personal stories on jealousy. Some stories take place in school, while others take place at home. Some people in this novel are jealous about family, friends, even strangers they just meet. Though the conflict and setting change with each story, the theme remains the same, and that theme is jealousy. Every single character has an issue on jealousy no matter what the cause may be, and only by reading these weird stories can you find out.
The story in this novel that I like the most was called “A Genius for Sauntering,” by Thatcher Helding and this was about a girl named Greta and a boy named Ben. Ben does sports after school and is the only one out of his friends who isn’t old enough to drive a car, so Greta meets up with him after school and they walk home together for a couple weeks. But things change when Ben’s finally able to get his driver’s license and get a nice car. The conflict of jealousy arises in Greta and she stops hanging out with him after school. Soon she ignores him for a couple days and then starts to walk home alone. Their relationship ends due to a car and Greta’s jealousy of how much Ben likes his car over her.
This story was really weird because what type of girl would be jealous of a car(?), but it was still interesting since the story was told in a two-point perspective, that is, that the story was told by both Greta and Ben and each had contrasting views of the situation. Though this novel seemed like a great read, it was still a little silly and weird. I guess this book would be more enjoyed by people who are overly jealous and envious of anything and everything. On a rating out of five, I would give this book a three because though the theme and idea for creating this novel was great- very few stories in this novel were actually pleasing to me. Though the Jealousy Book wasn’t very enjoyable for me, it was still humorous at times and I recommend that anyone reading the book should take the survey to find out their rating of jealousy found near the end of the novel.
The Jealousy Book, though humorous at times, still I think deserves to have better more plot-twisting stories to shock readers. I think that the editor should continue this novel with even more stories and real-life accounts from people all over the country and even the world to compare and contrast the jealousy of our country to others. I think this would make the novel more interesting and I think the author should only use stories that are super funny and a good read.