Hallucinating Iowa & Genetically Modified Obessions

Grasshopper Jungle by Andrew Smith
New York, N.Y. : Dutton Books, 2014.
388 p. ; 22 cm.  

Grasshopper Jungle is a wild ride.  It has been critically acclaimed - from the New York Times to making the 2015 Printz honor list.  I found it a compelling read - exciting, clever, funny, sometimes gruesome, and sometimes brilliant.  However, I ultimately found myself disappointed with the near-manic, writerly wittiness of the main character combined with his obsessive fixation on his (and others' testicles).

Before going further, I should just recap that the novel centers around Austin, a young man in a dinky Iowa town who accidentally unleashes a genetically manipulated plague that turns people into grizzly bear-sized, unstoppable, deadly, exponentially-reproductive mantids.  Caught at the center of this apocalyptic nightmare are Austin, his beloved girl friend, Shann, and his best friend Robby - a smart and striking gay young man for whom Austin has more than just feelings of friendship.  Austin is in a constant state of being turned on and attracted to practically all females - and confused about his love and attraction to Robby.

There is a great deal of wit, humor, history, politics and pop culture to round out this novel.  But I couldn't help getting weary of Austin's fixation on his testicles and the testicles of practically every male that's mentioned in the novel.  The novel has a middle school fixation on things bodily and sexual and I found it tiresome.

I would have loved the novel more if the locker room humor had been cut by about half.  It still would be a funny, and bawdy story, but it just wouldn't seem like it was trying SO hard to be edgy.  I also just find humor about testicles to be kind of boring - something I have felt watching the Daily Show and The Colbert Report.  As I read it, I kept trying to imagine a woman writing anything remotely similar...maybe.

Would I recommend the book?  Yes, to a mature student looking for a rollicking send-up of the end-of-the-world genre.  It is a fun read.  Also the ending was really great...no compromise there and pleasantly surprising.

Heartwarming, Sort Of

Back cover illus. by Bosma

Winger by Andrew Smith
New York : Simon & Schuster BFYR, 2013
438 p. : ill. ; 22 cm.

Winger is a readable, entertaining book.  Smith is great with dialogue and humor and the plotting moves along well.  It's a coming of age novel told in the voice of Ryan Dean West, aka "Winger" who is starting his junior year at a boarding school for wealthy kids in the Pacific NW.  He's smart, scrappy, a hard-playing, talented rugby player with heart, apparently cute, but...he's only 14 - two years younger than his peers (and especially Annie, his friend who he desperately loves and hopes will feel the same).  Winger is also immature, crude, completely obsessed with sex and rating the attractiveness of girls and women, and prone to fighting.  The Booklist reviewer nailed it: "In short, Ryan Dean is a slightly pervy but likable teen."

I would have said "somewhat likable" - I found at least one his pranks creepy and repulsive, his constant ranking of females tiresome, and his jealous possessiveness both hypocritical and annoying.  These would not have bothered me so much - except that Smith has written essentially a male fantasy tale.  Winger, in spite of his immaturity, and insistence on what a loser he is, ends up with the two most attractive and interesting girls in the school in love with him. As the School Library Journal reviewer noted about one of the girls: "One wonders what she sees in Ryan Dean."

The novel ends with a shocking act of violence that doesn't seem believable (at least not in the context of the novel) and raises a lot of questionable issues about the supposed motives and behaviors of closeted gay guys. 

In spite of my criticisms, the novel is funny, fun to read, and likely to appeal to both boys and girls.