Stick [Hardcover]

A while ago, I received an email, asking to be apart of the cover reveal for STICK. And now, the book is here and published and in stores and being read. Time flies.

About a year ago, I got my first taste of Andrew Smith. His novel THE MARBURY LENS was sorta crazy--I think in my review I said something along the lines of, "Andrew Smith writes about rape and dismemberment, and he doesn't make you feel awkward AT ALL." I was totally being honest. I was talking about Andrew's level of awesome with one of my friends, and he said something like, "He stands out among cookie cutter writers." And that's true, too. Andrew Smith's books are all these different things, and I absolutely love them.

In STICK, Stark McClellan is missing some things. He does not have a girlfriend, he does not have a loving family, and he does not have a left ear (or was it right?). What he does have is a gay brother, Bosten, and a gut feeling that he needs to escape from the tight clutches of his abusive father before he finds out.

Bosten leaves, and rightly so, but he left Stark ("Stick") behind. STICK is about a boy who wants something so bad, more than anything in the universe.

So, this book? Was written in this cool little way. Because Stick is missing one ear, he hears things different. Words travel slower. And Andrew Smith shows the reader this on the page, through funky formatting. I wouldn't call it verse or prose, it's just... different. Much like the story itself.

Second to the writing, the characters and their relationships with each other are probably the best thing about STICK. Andrew Smith can write about brotherhood dynamics better than anyone I know, and I got so immersed in the story I felt like they were my brothers and I was on this epic journey with them.

STICK really just blew my mind.

It's different. It's unlike anything you've ever read before. It's Andrew Smith.

When I read STICK I didn't know what to expect. I had hints. I knew it was going to be a difficult book to digest. Then again, if it wasn't, it wouldn't have been written by Andrew Smith. So many issues are covered within this novel. What's so-called normal and what's not, is one of the biggest for Stick. He is faced with the definition of "normal" the entire novel. Are all of these things in his life "normal" just because they have been present in his life?

There is so much happening in Stick's life in such a short time. There's a girl. Emily. She is Stick's best friend. They do everything together. And, there's his brother, Bosten. They used to do everything together but he's gotten older and has strayed off some. In Stick's life there couldn't be two more important people than Bosten and Emily. They mean the world to him.

This story is about two brothers and their love for each other. The struggles they go through, the mistakes they make. Learning how to let go and stand up for yourself. Doing the right things. Doing the wrong things. Loving yourself and loving someone else. And a very long journey to find a way back home.

Andrew makes you love the characters in his books, you feel what they do, you actually understand what they are going through. There were plenty of times that I had tears, times that I was shouting and a couple times I would do a fist pump in the air and say "hell-yeah". I was in it with both boys from the beginning and I was on their side. I felt their pain and joy. I also cried their tears. There were times I would close my eyes and vision an ocean in California just like where Stick learned to surf. I would even imagine the taste of Sex Wax and how wonderful the smell would be. I still listen to the playlist when I get lonely and want to visit the characters.

Andrew has a writing style that is so very unique even though everyone of his books are different from one another. I think what links them all together is the realness of them. For me, it's the wondering "what part of this is real and what part is fiction". I've told several folks that you could give me 10 books with no labels and I would be able to pick out an Andrew Smith book every time. Just by his writing style. No one could duplicate him. It takes a lot of heart and courage to put parts of your own life into words and make that into a story. I admire anyone that can do that. It seems as though Andrew just keeps rocking them out.

Stick came out today, a new novel by Andrew Smith, the author of Ghost Medicine, In the Path of Falling Objects, and The Marbury Lens. These are three of my favorite books, each for different reasons but more than anything they are three books about the relationships young men have with each other, and more specifically, brothers. Stick is similar in that it explores this territory, Andrew Smith territory, but it is, like each of Andrew's other books, different.

Synopsis from Amazon: Fourteen-year-old Stark McClellan (nicknamed Stick because he's tall and thin) is bullied for being "deformed" - he was born with only one ear. His older brother Bosten is always there to defend Stick. But the boys can't defend one another from their abusive parents. When Stick realizes Bosten is gay, he knows that to survive his father's anger, Bosten must leave home. Stick has to find his brother, or he will never feel whole again. In his search, he will encounter good people, bad people, and people who are simply indifferent to kids from the wrong side of the tracks. But he never loses hope of finding love - and his brother.

This is a subtle book beautifully written, sensitive, and innocent. But what I like more than anything are two things Andrew does: 1) His uncanny ability to write from the perspective of fourteen-year-old Stick. It is his trademark as a writer - to be able to get inside the heads of these protagonists. There are no wrong turns in the story because Stick does what he needs to - nothing more and nothing less. This is an incredible feat of writing. The second thing that Andrew does that makes him stand out is write beautiful prose. Some writers write pretty words but you notice them because they write that way for the sake of writing that way. Andrew crafts every sentence and every sentence sings as part of a larger tapestry that is his novel. His prose seems effortless and his narrative flows without a hitch because of it. And this is not just the way he writes Stick's thoughts, jumbled up sometimes and filled with holes another as if the words bang around inside and can't exit - an ingenious technique he uses to show how Stick hears and perceives the world.

Here's one of my favorites: "And none of what happened to us would ever make sense if I didn't let the biggest monsters that swarm in my head come up and reveal their teeth there is no love in our house only rules." When you read the context for this it will blow you away. In the land of realistic fiction for young adults, Andrew Smith is king.