Camp Merrie-Seymour for Boys is the home to Ariel and Max for the summer. Six weeks without technology, living in the Jupiter cabin (all the cabins are named for planets) they quickly realize they are different from everyone else at camp. Sent there not to overcome their addiction to technology (the advertise goal of the camp) Max and Ariel are there because their father works for Merrie-Seymour and camp tuition is free for employees. The only ones not obsessed with getting a sweet taste of the internet, the boys of Jupiter quickly begin to win the cabin competition. But when the boys of Jupiter sneak out of the cabin in the night to explore the counselors break room, they discover weed, booze and a book that may reveal the true goal of Camp Merrie-Seymour for Boys.
Much like the cabins of Camp Merrie-Seymour for Boys this book is really a solar system of stories, revolving and orbiting each other, crossing paths briefly. Ariel tells the story of how he came from a war-torn town in the middle east to be adopted by a family in Sunday, West Virgina and became Max's brother. The Alex Crow embarks on an exploratory voyage to the north pole in the 1800's, tragically becoming trapped in the ice and loosing most of it's crew. Leonard Fountain, "the melting man" and the product of biomedical research, drives cross-country with a bomb in the back of his u-haul, egged on by Joseph Stalin. Because this book is written by Andrew Smith, these stories sound unrelated and impossible to connect...But Smith connects them masterfully.
Every Andrew Smith book is different, and I don't even bother reading synopsis anymore, because I trust him to deliver. This book won't disappoint Smith fans. If you haven't read him before, you are in for an enjoyable (if weird) ride!