Dear Geoff Herbach,
Two words: Thank you. Okay, more than two words (i'm greedy). You are a genius. You write hilarious inner monologue. I don’t know when I have laughed as loud or loved a character so much. I hope you will keep writing amazing, funny, honest characters with as much heart as you did in Stupid Fast. Again – thank you!
Your Newest Fan,
Cecelia
I AM NOT STUPID FUNNY.I AM STUPID FAST.
My name is Felton Reinstein, which is not a fast name. But last November, my voice finally dropped and I grew all this hair and then I got stupid fast. Fast like a donkey. Zing!
Now they want me, the guy they used to call Squirrel Nut, to try out for the football team. With the jocks. But will that fix my mom? Make my brother stop dressing like a pirate? Most important, will it get me girls—especially Aleah?
So I train. And I run. And I sneak off to Aleah's house in the night. But deep down I know I can't run forever. And I wonder what will happen when I finally have to stop.
Felton Reinstein has been growing height and hair, his younger brother is driving him nuts, and his mother may have gone right off the deep end. Add in a new paper route, a best friend banished to Venezuela for the summer, and he might just decide to spend a couple of months on the couch. Luckily, a little bit of life and a world-class pianist show up to break him out of his rut – and he might be a jock?! This summer everything will change, whether Felton is ready or not.
Felton is the narrator. Despite his protestations, he’s insanely funny. He’s also weird. And normal. You know? Okay, that didn’t make sense. But I felt like I knew Felton, because his internal monologue was by turns neurotic, sweet, off-beat and annoying (and thus, as anyone who has experienced the teenage years knows, scarily accurate). His journey from average/weird to athletically talented/weird over the course of one summer is only one of his challenges – because through it all he has to deal with his family AND his hormones.
Stupid Fast is liquid laughter, teenage sweat, tears and angst, and the sweet innocence of summertime, all mixed up into something I’ll call pure genius. Geoff Herbach writes smart, sarcastic, and punchy prose. He writes quirky people who seem freakily real. And he does so with grace and style and… I’ve run out of words. Just, please, READ THIS BOOK.
Recommended for: teenage guys, anyone who has been searching for an extraordinary and distinctive ‘voice’ with generous helpings of humor, fans of young adult literature—in the best sense of the word, and those who admired Sherman Alexie’s The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian and Trish Cook and Brendan Halpin’s Notes from the Blender.
