THE TROUBLE WITH MARK HOOPER

Not every amusing concept yields a correspondingly amusing novel. Case in point: a story in which the main characters have the same name, have sisters with the same name, live in the same town and are in the same grade at the same school. The two Mark Geoffrey Hoppers cause all sorts of problems at school: schedule snafus, mixed-up party invitations, confusion over picking teams and the challenge of starting in a new school with one bad Mark against you from the outset. Worse than the infantile, middle-school name-calling—spitwad, fartbrain and diaper breath—is dialogue tedious from the beginning: “ ‘Thanks,’ said Mark. / ‘Yeah,’ said Mark. / ‘That’s a good place to start,’ Mark said quietly.” Or such lines as, “Mark crossed his arms. When you mess with Mark Geoffrey Hopper, he thought, you mess with Mark Geoffrey Hopper.” Though there is some character development and bad Mark Hopper gradually becomes less annoying, the novel never does. (Fiction. 9-12)