Wise Young Fool

July 1, 2013
Smart-mouthed rock guitarist Ritchie Sudden forms a band and spends time in a juvenile-detention facility. Ritchie's first-person narrative alternates between two present-tense storylines. In one, he is locked in an institution he calls Progressive Progress, where therapists push him to keep a journal and hardened fellow detainees arrange fights for other boys to bet on. In the other, which takes place before his imprisonment, Ritchie and his friend Elliot Hella, "the dude too cool to know it, too weird to be popular, too hardcore to give a shit," start a band in hopes of competing in Rock Scene 2013. The stylized narration moves quickly, littered with jokes and references, some clever, some oddly dated ("there's the Bridge, which, yeah, is a bridge, but with no water underneath, troubled or otherwise") and some jarringly harsh ("football is a concussion factory and cheerleaders are hot pockets of chlamydia"). Larger-than-life characters are mostly played to comic effect, often successfully: Chaos the bongo drummer (who pronounces his name "Chowus") and El Hella himself are two standouts. Behind the music quest, sarcasm and pursuit of girls, however, lies a more complicated and often compelling story about family, grief and flawed coping mechanisms. Hit-and-miss humor, but worth a read for budding rock stars. (Fiction. 14-18)

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Starred review from November 1, 2013

Gr 10 Up-This coming-of-age story is told in alternating story lines, leading up to Ritchie Sudden's arrest and his time in a juvenile detention center. Three years before the story begins, the teen's sister died in a drunk-driving accident, his father left and married a younger woman, and his mother started dating a younger woman. Ritchie picked up the guitar and poured his emotions into it. Now, he is entering his junior year in high school. He is in a hard-core band with his only friend, El Hella. They are trying to build their band, while Ritchie jumps from one bad relationship to the next and commits a felony. When the band rises to stardom, Ritchie has an emotional explosion that ends in his arrest. His time in juvie is told through short journal entries. His plan to keep from getting beaten up is to be antisocial and keep his head down. This doesn't work out and two inmates try to kill him. He narrowly escapes by pulling off an incredible stunt and finally comes out of his shell. There are a lot of messages about the importance of safe driving and staying away from drugs and alcohol without being preachy. This is not a typical rock band story; it is actually interesting. The author does a brilliant job getting into the head of a troubled teen and does not shy away from racy topics.-Erik Carlson, White Plains Public Library, NY

Copyright 2013 School Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

Starred review from August 1, 2013
Grades 9-12 *Starred Review* Smash your Stratocaster, pop the devil horns, and bite the head off a batthis headbanger is so right-on with passion and detail that you'll be smelling the garage-band funk and feeling the bass rattle your teeth. Eighteen-year-old Ritchie Sudden is stuck in juvie and tasked with journaling how he got there. In short: girls, music, and some bullshit trauma that Ritchie doesn't even want to talk about. It starts, as always, with best bud Elliot Hella, he of the shaved head and thick muttonchops, whose go-nowhere life hinges upon winning a big-time battle of the bands. El Hella and Ritchie have the requisite crappy equipment and sloppy chops to make hardcore historyall they need is a drummer, a singer, and a badass band name. ( Sin Sistermouth ain't cutting it.) Beaudoin is the Fred Astaire of comic writing, translating each sentence into a manic dance routine of half-invented jargon ( chewing the profunda-cud ) on his way to blessedly noncloying coming-of-age glory. The book is hugely generous: in sex, in violence, in attitude, and especially in heart, as Ritchie gets it through his thick skull what punk really means. And the performance scenes? Dude. If you can't grok the monster energy of these glorious idiots flailing around onstage, you're already dead.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2013, American Library Association.)