Stupid And Contagious

by Caprice Crane

[Leah]

I love Caprice Crane. I do. She is one of the funniest people ever. She shouldn’t be a writer, she should be a comedian. She totally missed her calling. But, you know, I’m sorta glad she IS a writer because I love her books. I read Forget About It a while back and pre-ordered With A Little Luck as soon as I saw it online and I absolutely loved it. So with Stupid and Contagious, her debut novel on my shelf, I had to read it. Because it sounded ridiculous. In the most nicest of ways. And it was ridiculous. In the most nicest of ways.

To adequately explain Stupid and Contagious, I give you the lines from the back cover: “Heaven’s in hell. And Brady just moved in. So what happens when an outcast and an oddball get together to take on the world?” That sums up the novel perfectly. Stupid and Contagious is one of the funniest most stupid books I’ve ever read. It was perfect in its stupidity and its genius. If I thought Caprice Crane should have been knighted for her previous books then Stupid and Contagious makes it a definite because it’s awesome. It’s not a run-of-the-mill Chick Lit novel and Heaven and Brady are thisclose to possibly needing to be committed, in a mental institute, I mean. But that’s the genius of the book, because despite being slightly nuts, Heaven and Brady are the best characters ever.

Music is a big, big part of the book, huge. I mean there are so many bands name-checked, so many I’ve never heard of, and Crane really knows her music. There should seriously have been a soundtrack at the end of the book so that we could download all the awesome songs both Heaven and Brady love. Their relationship is nuts and is what pushes the book. It takes a while – almost 100 pages before Heaven and Brady actually meet (insert sad face here) but from then on it’s like the book is on fire. It just comes into its own as Brady thinks Heaven is a total nutter and Heaven likes to read Brady’s mail. And steal his money. And give her opinion on things Brady doesn’t want an opinion on. But, eventually, they do sort of come around to each other. So it’s all good and it just made the book even better because their bantering was just so fun to read.

The alternating narrative makes the book really hard to put down because you just want to read one more page – you want to see the two react to each other, you want to see what they’re going to do next and it works fantastically. Why this isn’t a film already is beyond me. Crane is a script-writer and of her four novels, the three I’ve read can all easily be movies. They should be movies, frankly. It’s a crime they’re not and Stupid and Contagious should be a movie. Or a TV show. The back-and-forth nature of the narrative was brilliant and it meant we got to see everything Brady and Heaven thought and I felt we really got to know them and I was so sad to reach the end because I loved them in the end, quirks, foibles and all.

Stupid and Contagious is rather contagious. I know that’s not a very flattering word, but once Heaven and Brady meet it’s as if there’s nothing more important than finishing the book. It’s electric and I raced through it. I adored their chemistry and loved their fights and spats and throwdowns. I loved that Heaven wasn’t bothered about reading someone else’s mail and that Brady got so frustrated by it, it was just so funny. I’d hugely recommend Stupid and Contagious, I absolutely loved it. I loved that it was different to most Chick Lit, that Caprice made her characters so weird but so loveable, too. I can’t wait to read the only other Crane book I haven’t read, A Family Affair, I am officially hopping on board the Caprice Crane fan club and you really should, too.