Wow, this is one was not what I expected – and
that’s a good thing. Cover art being what it is (the
character apparently has a “jew-fro” which is not evident with the kid in the
picture), I assumed this was one of those “hi/lo” books I could read really fast ‘cuz it
would be about football games, which I don’t understand, so I could skip all
those blow-by-blow sections. Wrong. It’s an unexpected, layered, and surprisingly
sports-free book about a young man named Felton Reinstein, who is the kind of
protagonist that most teen boys will be able to relate to. Think more like Chris Crutcher with this, and
less “Orca Soundings.’ Felton is having
a bad summer … or is he? Trapped in that
Neverland between being a geeky awkward kid and turning into an adult, he faces
his 16th birthday with few friends and a body that is betraying
him. He’s grown seven inches and gained
42 pounds in the previous year. None of
his clothes fit, he has hair “everywhere” and he is a bit sensitive to the various
smells that now surround him. Family
issues converge with the attention of the high school athletics coaches to make
his summer a surreal mix of drama and training.
In short, his life becomes something extremely different in these few
months, and he wants to tell the reader about it. Told in first-person narrative, as if the
reader is his confidant, the entire tale is told rapid-fire, in short chapters,
over a single night. It is almost stream
of consciousness, and that is what makes it so engaging. Felton’s voice is absolutely real and his
randomness (timelines are kind of all over the place) is semi-adorable. It’s a bit of a ride but since I bought into
Felton’s character quickly, it was easy to buy into the other premises, which
include a rural town in Monday, September 30, 2013
“Stupid Fast” by Geoff Herbach
Wow, this is one was not what I expected – and
that’s a good thing. Cover art being what it is (the
character apparently has a “jew-fro” which is not evident with the kid in the
picture), I assumed this was one of those “hi/lo” books I could read really fast ‘cuz it
would be about football games, which I don’t understand, so I could skip all
those blow-by-blow sections. Wrong. It’s an unexpected, layered, and surprisingly
sports-free book about a young man named Felton Reinstein, who is the kind of
protagonist that most teen boys will be able to relate to. Think more like Chris Crutcher with this, and
less “Orca Soundings.’ Felton is having
a bad summer … or is he? Trapped in that
Neverland between being a geeky awkward kid and turning into an adult, he faces
his 16th birthday with few friends and a body that is betraying
him. He’s grown seven inches and gained
42 pounds in the previous year. None of
his clothes fit, he has hair “everywhere” and he is a bit sensitive to the various
smells that now surround him. Family
issues converge with the attention of the high school athletics coaches to make
his summer a surreal mix of drama and training.
In short, his life becomes something extremely different in these few
months, and he wants to tell the reader about it. Told in first-person narrative, as if the
reader is his confidant, the entire tale is told rapid-fire, in short chapters,
over a single night. It is almost stream
of consciousness, and that is what makes it so engaging. Felton’s voice is absolutely real and his
randomness (timelines are kind of all over the place) is semi-adorable. It’s a bit of a ride but since I bought into
Felton’s character quickly, it was easy to buy into the other premises, which
include a rural town in 
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment