Tom's review
Hairstyles of the Damned
by Joe Meno
I didn't like the Boy Detective Fails, but maybe I just don't enjoy his style?
Tom's review
Hairstyles of the Damned by Joe Meno
Tom's review
rating:
recommended for: Punk Planet readers, music lovers, teens, disaffected youth!
Full disclosure: I just signed up Joe Meno's newest novel at Norton, so I'm totally biased.
A cult bestseller from 2004, HAIRSTYLES is an energetic gem of a book about adolescence: awkwardness, frustrated love, beer, shifting friendships, mixtapes, and music that rocks. Not only is it a spectacular package (look at that hair!) but the book is a fast, enjoyable read that wouldn't suffer from comparisons to previous tales of disaffected youth (Holden Caulfield, I'm looking at you.) Best of all, he gives Judith Regan the bird before he even gets to the story. Genius!
One might say that this was the promising work of a young novelist, just stretching his legs and finding his voice... but then you'd have to skip over the fact that -- at age 33 -- Meno has already published 5 novels, as well as comics, plays, and short stories, and he was a contributing editor for Punk Planet magazine until that magazine's untimely demise last year. The guy has ideas!
A cult bestseller from 2004, HAIRSTYLES is an energetic gem of a book about adolescence: awkwardness, frustrated love, beer, shifting friendships, mixtapes, and music that rocks. Not only is it a spectacular package (look at that hair!) but the book is a fast, enjoyable read that wouldn't suffer from comparisons to previous tales of disaffected youth (Holden Caulfield, I'm looking at you.) Best of all, he gives Judith Regan the bird before he even gets to the story. Genius!
One might say that this was the promising work of a young novelist, just stretching his legs and finding his voice... but then you'd have to skip over the fact that -- at age 33 -- Meno has already published 5 novels, as well as comics, plays, and short stories, and he was a contributing editor for Punk Planet magazine until that magazine's untimely demise last year. The guy has ideas!
I didn't like the Boy Detective Fails, but maybe I just don't enjoy his style?