The Losers Club

Fiction | Novel | Middle Grade | Published in 2017

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Summary

Background

Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Chapters 1-8

Chapters 9-13

Chapters 14-19

Chapters 20-26

Chapters 27-31

Chapters 32-37

Character Analysis

Themes

Symbols & Motifs

Important Quotes

Essay Topics

Tools

Beta

Discussion Questions

Themes

The Value of Reading

The Value of Reading theme is developed throughout the novel as protagonist Alec looks to reading for comfort, wisdom, and guidance and uses reading as a means of developing connections with his peers. Throughout the novel, reading is presented as both a source of entertainment and a useful tool for self-growth.

Alec’s reading habit is established in the very first chapter as a conflict for him when he cannot stop reading in school. However, it isn’t until Chapter 7 when the value of reading is really developed. After a difficult encounter with his bully, Kent, Alec turns to Charlotte’s Web in the car ride home to bring him comfort. Alec’s comfort books are “stories so familiar that they made reading feel like coasting downhill on a bike or water-skiing on a smooth lake” (33). The book is so comforting to Alec that he stays in the car long after they’ve arrived home to finish the chapter he’s on. The comfort Alec gets from rereading his favorite books shows how the value of some books is in their familiarity.

Alec also uses reading as a source of wisdom. Reading guides Alec in his decisions as he becomes more deeply entrenched in his rivalry with Kent. After Kent hurts Nina’s feelings in Chapter 25, Alec feels the need to act on his anger toward Kent. However, he recalls his favorite heroes from literature and remembers, “Courage was always important. And effort. But the characters who were only out for revenge? They usually failed” (146). Knowing that he should not go into the confrontation with just revenge on his mind, Alec devises a plan to win a bet against Kent, with the consequence for Kent being that he must join the Losers Club for a week. Alec’s choice of a constructive consequence for Kent shows how he understands that revenge should not be the sole motivator for conflict. The guidance Alec takes from the books he’s read shows how reading is a valuable tool for considering one’s actions and consequences.

Finally, reading is a tool of friendship for Alec throughout the book. Starting with Nina, Alec builds a friendship with her based on the books they’ve read in common. This trend continues as Nina and, later, Jason join the Losers Club. Alec also uses books to mend the dynamic between him and his former friend, Kent. After Kent joins the Losers Club, Alec decides to give Kent “a book he’ll like” (161). Kent enjoys the book so much that he goes on to read the rest of the books in the series. Later, when Kent asks Alec about the book choice, he expresses positive feelings about the book, as it helped him to read about another kid dealing with his parents’ divorce. The way reading helps Alec and Kent revive their friendship shows that reading can be a valuable place to find common ground and understanding between people. In this way, a love of reading also helps Alec build strong social bonds with others.

Labels and Misconceptions

Labels and the misconceptions that they can carry is a theme developed throughout the novel through the titular Losers Club and how people interpret it, as well as through the labels that Alec grapples with, like bookworm. Over the course of the novel, Alec develops a deeper understanding of how labels can be derogatory or empowering, gradually growing more confident in defining his own identity.

The potential negative effects of labels appears from the start of the novel, with Kent calling Alec a bookworm as a means of ridiculing him. Alec muses, “Did he deserve the nickname? Sure he did […] He really did love to read” but adds, “But the way Kent said it? That was different” (30). This instance illustrates Alec’s complicated relationship with the label of bookworm: While he agrees that “being called a bookworm almost felt like an honor” (30), he also knows that it’s a label that can be wielded as an insult when coming from certain people. Alec’s relationship with the bookworm label is therefore a source of internal conflict for him, as he goes back and forth between accepting the label and resenting it, depending on the context.

However, once he realizes that to start his club, “What he needed was another bookworm” (37), Alec starts to renegotiate his stance on the label. In Chapter 20, Alec seeks guidance from his father. Alec’s dad urges him not to place so much emphasis on labels, while also reminding Alec that he’s not just a bookworm, as Alec is also talented at water skiing. This conversation helps Alec to realize that labels don’t tell the entire story of a person: He can be a bookworm and a sports guy. Through this conversation, Alec realizes that labels can carry misconceptions and fail to tell a complete story. In a similar vein, Kent’s eventual embrace of reading during his time in the Losers Club also reinforces the idea that an individual can have many facets to their character. With the realization that people are more complex than their labels, Alec and Kent find common ground, and Alec no longer feels bothered when Kent calls him a bookworm.

The Losers Club name is also an example of how labels can carry misconceptions. At the beginning of the book, Alec intentionally chooses the name “Losers Club” to put people off from joining. He understands that the term “loser” carries a negative connotation, and he and the other club members feel self-conscious about the label from time to time. However, in the final chapter, Alec takes his father’s earlier advice about labels and rebrands what “loser” means in the context of the Losers Club. For his open house presentation, Alec reasons, “We lose ourselves in books for hours and hours” and “[books] make us lose some ignorance, and lose some fear” (224). By presenting the Losers Club under this interpretation, he reclaims the term and creates a positive connotation with the label to his peers and their families.

Overall, the labels bookworm and loser get several interpretations throughout the novel, depending on the context. In discovering how to make the label meaningful for him at the novel’s end, Alec learns how to define himself in a more empowering way.

Bullying Versus Friendship

A primary conflict in The Losers Club is Alec’s dynamic with his former-friend-turned-bully, Kent. Kent loudly teases Alec for his bookworm ways, establishing Kent as a bully figure. The way Alec navigates his conflict with Kent is the primary device for exploring the differences between bullying and friendship, with Alec gradually learning how to break the bullying cycle through kindness.

In Chapter 6, Alec recalls his eighth birthday party, back when he and Kent were still friends. Alec got a book as a gift and “sat down and read that book for forty minutes—right in the middle of his own party” (29). As a result, Kent called Alec a bookworm for the first time. This was a turning point in their relationship, as Kent has been Alec’s bully ever since. Kent’s bullying makes Alec self-conscious about his love for books. Despite Alec agreeing that “being called a bookworm almost felt like an honor” (30), he’s still disturbed by how Kent wields it against him. When he tries to relax and read after an encounter with Kent, “every few minutes, he heard Kent’s voice echoing inside his head: Bookworm!” (31). Kent’s descent from friendship to bullying shows how easily one can make a choice to be unkind.

Alec chooses a different path when given opportunities to bully Kent back. When Kent conveys to Nina that he had the opportunity to join the Losers Club before she joined, Nina privately asks Alec what Kent meant. Despite his opportunity to let Nina know that Kent doesn’t like to read and mocks people who do, Alec takes the honorable route and chooses not to bully Kent by poisoning Nina’s image of him. Alec again chooses to be honorable to Kent when Kent loses the kickball bet. Alec offers to let him out of the punishment, which is to spend a week with the Losers Club. However, Kent agrees to do the honorable thing in return and face his punishment.

This begins the mending of fences between the boys, which Alec chooses to continue. In Chapter 27, Nina suggests Alec “make [Kent] read Lily’s Ice Princess book” (161), but Alec decides not to bully Kent. Instead, he chooses a book he believes Kent will enjoy. Later, Kent asks if Alec gave him that book to bully him over his parents’ divorce. Alec says he didn’t know about the divorce, which gladdens Kent and softens his attitude towards Alec. Alec’s sharing of this book with Kent serves as an offer of friendship between the boys. By choosing to be kind, Alec makes reconciliation possible. Alec’s decisions regarding Kent convey the idea that friendship is an easier and more productive route than bullying, and that kindness is always the better alternative.