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Aug. 25th, 2022 09:47 pmI was recommended We Ride Upon Sticks and bought it like two years ago in the heights of my full-blown pandemic book-specific retail therapy, but I've only just recently gotten around to reading it. Sometimes one has to wait until the time is right! Anyway, I then promptly recommended this extremely Masshole book to a lot of local friends, because, among other sterling qualities Quan Barry understands the historical fact that the Salem witch trials in fact took place in what is now present-day Danvers and not aggressively spooky Salem next door.
The premise, specifically, is "so the Danvers High Field Hockey Team pledge themselves to a dark power in order to win the 1989 field hockey championship." The dark power is called Emilio because the team members write their vows and subsequent Dark Deeds in a sparkly Emilio Estevez notebook belonging to foul-mouthed French Canadian goalie Mel Bouchard, if this gives you perhaps a sense of the tone.
Other team members include The Nerd, The Popular One (Upper Class), The Popular One (Lower Class), The One With Triple A Cups (uncomfortable), The One Black Kid, The One Korean Kid, The One Extremely Christian Adopted Vietnamese Kid, The One Boy*, The One Whose Family Runs A Very Nice Farm, and The One Who Is Descended From The Original Salem Putnams (her name is Abby Putnam and she is a very pleasant, wholesome jock who spends the entire book eating tremendous amounts of high-potassium fruit and giving pleasant, wholesome jock advice like "friends, all I can say is don't do anything you don't wanna do.") None of these are really any more main-character-y than the others and all of them go on their ownw individual journeys, although Jen Fiorenza's Claw (intensely hairsprayed bangs which fairly on gain sentience and become their own powerful magical entity) gives her perhaps more prominence than some of the others; the book is narrated in first person plural, ( spoilers )
In general the energy of the text is pretty lighthearted, interspersed with increasingly ominous hints that the whole situation is going to end with Something Dramatic And Dire; ( more spoilers, thematic rather than specific ) Regardless I had a great time and enjoyed it very much!
The premise, specifically, is "so the Danvers High Field Hockey Team pledge themselves to a dark power in order to win the 1989 field hockey championship." The dark power is called Emilio because the team members write their vows and subsequent Dark Deeds in a sparkly Emilio Estevez notebook belonging to foul-mouthed French Canadian goalie Mel Bouchard, if this gives you perhaps a sense of the tone.
Other team members include The Nerd, The Popular One (Upper Class), The Popular One (Lower Class), The One With Triple A Cups (uncomfortable), The One Black Kid, The One Korean Kid, The One Extremely Christian Adopted Vietnamese Kid, The One Boy*, The One Whose Family Runs A Very Nice Farm, and The One Who Is Descended From The Original Salem Putnams (her name is Abby Putnam and she is a very pleasant, wholesome jock who spends the entire book eating tremendous amounts of high-potassium fruit and giving pleasant, wholesome jock advice like "friends, all I can say is don't do anything you don't wanna do.") None of these are really any more main-character-y than the others and all of them go on their ownw individual journeys, although Jen Fiorenza's Claw (intensely hairsprayed bangs which fairly on gain sentience and become their own powerful magical entity) gives her perhaps more prominence than some of the others; the book is narrated in first person plural, ( spoilers )
In general the energy of the text is pretty lighthearted, interspersed with increasingly ominous hints that the whole situation is going to end with Something Dramatic And Dire; ( more spoilers, thematic rather than specific ) Regardless I had a great time and enjoyed it very much!
