Nearly a year after his brother´s suicide, sixteen-year-old Cliff "Neanderthal" Hubbard gets recruited to make life better at Happy Valley High by the school´s quarterback, who claims he had a vision from God.
Cliff Hubbard is a huge loser. Literally. His nickname at Happy Valley High School is Neanderthal because he´s so enormous-6´6" and 250 pounds to be exact. He has nobody at school, and life in his trailer-park home has gone from bad to worse ever since his older brother´s suicide.
There´s no one Cliff hates more than the nauseatingly cool quarterback Aaron Zimmerman. Then Aaron returns to school after a near-death experience with a bizarre claim: while he was unconscious he saw God, who gave him a list of things to do to make Happy Valley High suck less. And God said there´s only one person who can help: Neanderthal.
To his own surprise, Cliff says he´s in. As he and Aaron make their way through the List, which involves a vindictive English teacher, a mysterious computer hacker, a decidedly unchristian cult of Jesus Teens, the local drug dealers, and the meanest bully at HVHS, Cliff feels like he´s part of something for the first time since losing his brother. But fixing a broken school isn´t as simple as it seems, and just when Cliff thinks they´ve completed the List, he realizes their mission hits closer to home than he ever imagined.