Stefan Koski is not your average high school kid. He's an eccentric. He's the class-clown, an anthropophobic loner, and a sarcastic, pessimistic, underachieving slacker. He goes through the regular school day with the kind of contempt that puts him at odds with everyone from his teachers to his offbeat classmates to Amnesty International. And he wrote a book detailing the whole experience.

Miscellaneous Philosophy: The Underclassman Years goes in-depth in talking about the average day of high school through the eyes of Koski's uncommon viewpoint. Satire knows no bounds as he talks about how the metric system was invented by Communists in biology, how Amnesty International is the bane of human existence while suffering through homeroom, and how prison ball is the modern day right-of-passage from boyhood to manhood. He describes, with gripping and laughable detail, the confusion of the Spanish language, the insanity of teaching a lesson about imaginary numbers, and a true account of how his guidance counselor went on a mildly murderous rampage in an effort to get back pictures of his pet pugs.

Amidst all the humor and wisecracks, he makes some deeply moving discoveries about himself and his life, brought on by the inspirational stories of his friends who were any combination of athlete, artist, suicidal, musician, outcast, druggie, and nonconformist.

It isn't a manifesto for the glory days of youth, and it's not another crusade for the dorky underdog, but it is something that grabs the conceptual belief of high school by the gonads.

What the Critics Say:

...smart and well-organized. The verbosity an editor might have eliminated actually lends something authentic and comedic to the effort. What is gained from this rawness is an immediacy, an intelligent but nonetheless boy's-eye view, if you will, of the real high school experience.

--Tamara Tragakiss, The Litchfield County Times

Though the events he faced were localized, the lessons and discoveries he derived from them were written in a humorous, sarcastic, and witty enough way to make any teenage high school student laugh and read on.

--Joe Keo, The Tattoo

Koski paints such a vivid imagery that I could almost smell that distinct but yet still unidentifiable smell that always permeated the cafeteria of my high school... thought provoking in a P.J. O'Rourke meets Dave Barry sort of way.

--Jennifer Murray, BookPleasures.com

I enjoyed the tour greatly, and I thought, "I wish I could have written that well as a high school sophomore"... he has the talent to be a successful writer.

--Willie Elliot, MyShelf.com

...from the smoothness and readability of his style and mechanics, the reader feels that he's just getting started in a long career of dealing with the printed word.

--James M. Curtiss, BookPleasures.com

From the Back Cover:

Stefan Koski takes us on a guided tour of confused adolescence. Using extreme logic, keen observation, and knife-sharp sarcasm, he combines his unique rationalism with anecdotes from his day-to-day life as a high school sophomore.

Lower Standards = Higher Self-Esteem

We do not "cheat." Cheating is wrong. We "participate in a cooperative learning experience."

A civil war in the Congo is not some sort of international crisis--it's just Thursday.