Throughout Ajay Anthonipillai’s life thus far, he’s dutifully adhered to his Sri Lankan parents’ rules. Their 16-item list, displayed at the end of Maria Marianayagam’s winning and inventive No Purchase Necessary, includes things like “Straight As only,” “No friendships with the opposite sex” and “No working while you’re in school.”
Alas, ever since Ajay started eighth grade at Bridge Creek Middle School, he’s been struggling. At his previous school, kids called him “Obnoxious Ajay” because of his relentless academic competitiveness. Now that he’s grown up a bit, he’s more interested in making friends than viewing classmates as rivals, but he’s unsure how to go about it. So, when popular bully Jacob Underson hints they’ll become buddies if Ajay steals a Mercury bar from Al’s convenience store, Ajay shocks himself by actually doing it . . . only for Jacob to laughingly reject his offering, leaving him defeated and guilty. “How was this my life? What made me so unlikable? This year was supposed to be a fresh start.”
Adding to Ajay’s misery, he gets a 79% in language arts class and lies to his parents about it, drawing his sister Aarthi’s disapproval. A classmate, Mandy, seems friendly, but he’s nervous around her, and she gets better language arts grades (old habits die hard). And that chocolate bar, sold during a 25th anniversary promotion? It’s the winner of Mercury’s million-dollar grand prize. But how can he—legally, morally—claim a prize from stolen candy?
Ajay secretly gets a job at Al’s so he can destroy evidence of his crime. But as he gets to know Al while contending with a cascade of ethical dilemmas, his guilt intensifies, not least because his family could really use that money. Is there any way to cash in without betraying everything they’ve worked for?
No Purchase Necessary is an entertaining, thought-provoking read rife with suspenseful twists and turns and well-drawn characters, and enlivened by the witty, appealing voice of its protagonist. Marianayagam perfectly captures the emotional, social and moral minefields of middle school, and will have readers rooting for Ajay to find happiness as he figures out which rules serve him—and which are meant to be broken.
