Huge

Almost 13-year-old Eugene Huge Smalls--known as Genie by his enemies and family, Huge by his friends--thinks of himself as a hard-boiled detective in the pulp fiction vein. Narrator Jeff Woodman modulates his voice to sound like that of a teenage boy who acts and talks like a tough guy. When Huge's grandmother hires him to identify the culprit who vandalized a sign at her nursing home, he fires up his attitude. With his sidekick "Thrash," a stuffed turtle, Huge confronts the bad guys. Woodman's performance never falters, never for a moment sounds like he's a grown-up reading in the voice of an imaginative boy. As Huge tries to solve the mystery, the listener is treated to a quirky coming-of-age story. M.B.K. (c) AudioFile 2010, Portland, Maine

Starred review from February 1, 2010
Fuerst's debut novel about a 12-year-old wannabe detective gives listeners a hilarious, nostalgic look back at the Jersey 'burbs of the 1980s. Eugene "Huge" Smalls, accompanied by his sidekick and only friend, a stuffed turtle, is hired by his possibly senile grandmother to investigate a case of vandalism at her retirement home. Eugene learns how to be "huge" in this coming-of-age tale, even if he doesn't entirely learn how to be a detective. Audie Award winner Jeff Woodman ("Stolen Child") lends the story a "Stand by Me" quality, infusing it with life. A rhinestone-in-the-rough novel and an author to keep an eye on; for appreciators of J.D. Salinger's "Catcher in the Rye" and Jack Pendarvis's "Shut Up, Ugly". [See Prepub Alert, "LJ" 3/15/09.Ed.]Terry Ann Lawler, Phoenix P.L.

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