Sprout (original 2009; edition 2009)

This book has a truly violent and scary underlayer. Sprout is a complex and interesting young man, and he's surrounded by odd characters and strange reverberations from his past. His mom's dead, his dad's a drunk, his kinda-sorta-boyfriend's.. well, that'd be a spoiler. The characters are well-drawn and eccentric. I'm not really sure how I feel about this one- it's disturbing and unresolved and what Wendy Burton would probably call a 'boy book' in a slightly dismissive tone. Peck's work has been hit or miss for me, with the standout being [b:Drift House: The First Voyage|19983|Drift House The First Voyage|Dale Peck|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1167290872s/19983.jpg|1931660]. This, for me, doesn't reach those giddy heights, but it's certainly worth a read for the disorientation factor alone. ( )

Sprout is a sarcastic, wonderful, kind-hearted narrator. He plays tricks on the reader but never out of malice. He struggles with mistakes he and the others in his life have made, tries to find fun and joy in a world that often tries to squash it out of him, and he will steal your heart. ( )

Apologies for perhaps forgetting bits of the novel, as it's been a few weeks since I've read it, but I wanted to review it then, and I want to review it now (and also, to respond to other reviews here).

Sprout ended up being an entirely different novel than I expected, though not in a bad way. Somehow, I got the idea that it was going to be a funny, light-hearted book; completely false. Go elsewhere for that.

Anyway, moving on. One character nobody seems to be mentioning in the reviews is Ruthie, Sprout's rebellious friend with aspirations to fame, who has been driving her mother's car since she was 12. Stories Sprout tells about her are just amazing, my favorite part of the novel's beginning, so she should be mentioned.

Now I shall address the reader reviews that say, "Sprout is not a believable high schooler because he uses big words." As someone who was not long ago a high schooler, I take offense. Teenagers are perfectly capable of not only knowing, but using a large vocabulary. I will concede that more than half of the time, someone who talks like Sprout (of any age, actually) is not a believable character. However, Sprout is not an average teen; he reads the dictionary for fun, for fuck's sake (as do I, I shamefully admit). If anything, I would have been skeptical if Sprout, word nerd, social reject, and writer extraordinaire, used ordinary, simple words like most people do. Just because a high school character doesn't talk like, "cool, totally, like, rly," does not mean they're not realistic.

Now I will voice my disappointment with the ending of the book, in which we discover that (surprise! /sarcasm) Sprout has returned his hair to its natural, god-given color, thank the lord. Whenever I read a book with a teen protagonist with distinct hair or clothes, I worry they will "become normal" in the end, and my fears are usually confirmed. It's a tired cliche at this point, but every author thinks they are being unique, with their "oh, my makeup/clothes/hair was just HIDING THE REAL ME ALL ALONG," as if people with unusual style are fake, and mainstream fashions are somehow more natural and "authentic." Anyone who dresses differently has mental or social problems going on, and once they have overcome them, they begin to dress normally. I've never read a book where things happen the other way around, with someone conforming to mainstream fashion out of fear dying their hair black and purple and getting a lip piercing at the end of the novel. These authors apparently are writing only for some teens; readers with dyed hair, piercings, or excessive makeup need not read. This device bothers me on a personal level, as a pierced man who dresses distinctively, but also at this point it's just become boring. Writers need to find some more creative way of showing that their unusual teenage protagonist has grown as a person. Thousands of authors each year manage to write novels that don't end with a haircut, I'm sure these authors can do the same. I expected better of Dale Peck, against all past experience, perhaps because Sprout was not excessively stereotyped. I was very disappointed.

On a rather irrelevant note, I love the new cover for this book (I think it's new anyway). The old cover which is the one on the copy was good and eye grabbing as well, but this one is just gorgeous.

In conclusion, read this book when you're in the mood for an interesting, thoughtful, and unique. I suppose I didn't laud it too much in my review, but it totally was good! I appreciated Peck not feeling the need to lighten the tone during the novel just because it's YA; not that writers who do that are doing something wrong, just it would have ruined the things that made this book special. It seems like the author respects teenagers just as much as adults, essential for anyone writing YA (or anything else with teens in it). And apart from the hackneyed haircut, Sprout is much different than most novels, Ya and non, that I've read. Unusual yet believable characters, a refreshingly pessimistic voice, and one of the few endings (maybe the only one, come to think of it) I've read that was somewhat depressing, didn't try to be hopeful or have a positive spin (artificially brightening the tone suddenly would have been jarring and disastrous), and yet was realistic and not over-the-top miserable (I'm looking at you, Robert Cormier). ( )

Reviewed by Lauren Ashley for TeensReadToo.com

Sprout has seemingly made his life an open book: in a new town, people know that he lives in the trailer covered in vines, that his dad is the town drunk, and even that his mother passed away before he arrived. However, his being gay is supposed to be in that category and it's not completely that way. It does become known as the story goes on that he's gay, and I love that he doesn't have a problem with it, but it's still a bit of a secret for awhile.

This book is told through the point of view of Sprout and the set-up is a bit hard to explain, but reads a lot like essays strung together in an overall story. Things in the beginning are mentioned later on, but there are points when it seems the story starts over and focuses on something else and then goes back.

For example, the beginning of this deals a lot with a teacher and Sprout working on his essay writing in the summer so he can enter a competition that she believes he can win...only, of course, if he doesn't mention he's gay. Then the story stops talking about that for awhile and you focus more on a boy named Tyler that Sprout hates at first, but slowly starts to fall for. Eventually, the two parts line up for the end.

It might sound a bit confusing, but it seems to work overall. I found myself invested more in the Tyler part as the story goes on, but the completion is a big part of Sprout's life and truly shows how he changes in the end.

This isn't a happily-ever-after story, but it's not so depressing that you can't find the hope. That's something that Sprout always had to do...find hope and brightness in his sometimes messed up life. His relationship with Tyler was awkward and interesting and quite different than anything most people have read about, whether a straight or gay relationship. It seemed more realistic in a way. It wasn't "I'll love you forever" right away or even in the end. It was complicated and tough.

In the end, SPROUT is a different kind of book that would appeal to people looking for something a little off, a little goofy, a little sad, and a little lovely. ( )

Precocious green-haired teen from Long Island finds himself in a Kansas high school after his mother dies and his father takes up booze for a living. The structure of the novel is interesting, and the language... yum. The first person voice is powerful and interesting - but not entirely convincing. I couldn't really believe he was the age claimed. I wanted a different ending too, as the apparently mature voice led me to expect a different reaction in the denoument. Still, it's a pretty great read. ( )