Humorous & Conversational
Pop quiz time. What do Rafe and Calvin and Hobbes' Calvin not have in common?
Answer: One of them actually talks like a boy his age and one of them talks like a forty-year-old philosopher.
Rafe talks like a normal kid…or at least a normal kid with an SNL-caliber sense of humor. One of the things that makes this book so readable is the fact that Rafe has such a conversational way of narrating.
And, bonus: even when Rafe is at his lowest moments, he's not above laying on the sarcasm. Take when he's serving his in-school detention:
I turned thirteen in that room. Winter ended, and then spring came and went. Wars happened. Trees grew. Babies were born and people died. (50.3)
This is just Rafe's way of letting us know that in-school suspensions are super-long and super-boring…and that Rafe's imagination is running wild as he's cooped up, serving time.