The Rule of Won by Stefan Petrucha

[description from Amazon]

The secret of The Rule of Won is simple, yet its power has been suppressed for generations. The universe is one of infinite abundance—ask, and you shall receive.

Umm, yeah right. Meet Caleb Dunne, slacker extraordinaire. Caleb prefers to glide through life with the minimal amount of effort, so he isn’t too jazzed when his overachieving girlfriend, Vicky, convinces him to join a new school club based on a controversial book, The Rule of Won. Slackers don’t join school clubs, do they? As The Rule gains popularity, though, the club members start to gain power within the school. From dark posts on the club’s online message board to all-out threats in the hallways, it becomes apparent that the group is getting out of control. For slacker Caleb, though, the only thing worse than doing something is not doing something.

Darkly funny and exceptionally thought-provoking, The Rule of Won, inspired by the ideas behind books like the runaway hit The Secret, shines a light on the dangers of group thinking and the inner desires that can sometimes get the best of us all.

Review:

Know what? I cannot figure out a way to start this review (which is why it's taken me so long to write it). So let's just pretend I said something smart and/or funny and move on to actual relevant information.

Caleb was one lovely narrator. He was sarcastic, witty, and smart. I really liked seeing the cult-like group thing through his eyes, since he had oh so much commentary on it. And although I got a little annoyed with him constantly referring to his "slacker ways" (you only need to be told so many times that someone is a slacker), he still added a lot to the book.

The concept was interesting as well. There's plenty to think about while reading, even though the concept of the Rule of Won is pretty unbelievable. But there is still a lot to think about, like mob mentality stuff (Series of Unfortunate Events taught me that!....I think.) and how far people will go to get what they want.

Overall, this a quick, light, funny read with a lot of depth, once you look hard enough.

8/10