"Four disparate high school seniors come together to compete in their school's battle of the bands. Sharing a love for playing rock and roll, the members name the band 'The Stereotypical Freaks' because they feel stereotyped by their classmates-- smart kid, geek, star athlete and quiet weirdo-- when in fact they know they are much more than those labels that have been placed on them. When one member reveals life altering news, winning the competition takes on more of a meaning to each member. Scared and angry, upset and yet still with a lot of resolve they set out to win one for the good guys-- will they?"--Publisher's web site.
I had read a little background info on this book before I came in, so one of the main plot revelations had been spoiled somewhat for me before reading. That did absolutely nothing to lessen the gut punch effect of this story. The writing by Howard Shapiro is wonderful. The art by Joe Pekar is clean and well inked. The characters' facial expressions and body language are such a significant part of the narrative adding to and filling out subtext between the characters. There are silent panels without dialogue that tell a whole story by themselves.
Beautifully written and provides a true window into daily life (as I remember it at least) in a typical American high school, including the jocks, the brains, the 'unattainable' girl, the shy overweight kid. Sounds pretty stereotyped and the danger here of course is that this book -could- easily have been two dimensional and flat. It was emphatically not that. Wonderful storytelling, wonderful story, believable characters, and dammit, it made me cry.
There were a few minor (minor!) penciling typo/editing problems (I read an ARC, so they might well have been corrected before publishing), but one of the characters is spelled Marcel and Marcell several places in the book.
Final opinion: gorgeous powerful story wonderfully illustrated and not to be missed. This one will be with me a long time.
Five stars, wonderful work
Disclosure: I received an ARC at no cost from the author/publisher.
