Review: Winger by Andrew Smith
I have been meaning to read this book for a while. When it came up for free on pulseit during its 31 days of reading, I made sure not to miss out on reading it. I have to say I was so so close to giving this five stars. I want to , but enough bugged me to warrant the four star rating. Just to put it out there, my star rating does not drop when a character dies or when I hate a character. It does drop when certain plot points drive me crazy. This is one of those times .
The good
To start off, I loved the characters in this. Ryan Dean was the perfect mix of funny, awkward and perverted for my liking. I even liked most of the side characters, too. Bonus! There were many laugh out loud moments, crude humor, and some downright “this only happens in a book/movie” funny moments that seem totally believable in the context that they take place. I am still curious as to whether Ryan Dean’s mom actually sent him condoms and sex-ed stuff in the mail or if she was just joking. Ryan Dean never opened the box she sent, so I guess it will always be a mystery. I also loved the artwork scattered throughout, and the fact that the author could balance funny, serious and sad all in one book. Even if I did slightly predict the big , bad supposed to punch you in the gut sad moment.
The annoying
Still on top of all that what dropped my rating from 5 to 4 was the romance elements. As a rule , my rule at least, I can’t for the life of me stand most romance in books or movies. I just can’t . I get it happens and I am fine with it in some books as long as either A. the book is marketed as romance or B. the romance is not a major plot element. For this novel , the issue with the romance was that it relied heavily on one of the trope of best friends falling in love because men and women cannot be “just friends”. Ok , I get it happens in real life, but it is so overused in movies and books that it is not cute or romantic. Could just be me, though. I should have known it was going to happen, but I had such hopes that the author wouldn’t go there. I hate having to hunt down authors I actually like for crap like this. Sigh. Just once can I have a book that doesn’t do this? If the author wants to include this trope can the characters start dating have the romance end up being super awkward or end up being super bad? That I would believe. To be totally honest, I probably would not have taken the rating down if the main character and the girl had either not been friends or had been dating at the start of the novel. Not sure, though. This bugs me so much because I am a firm believable that guys and girls can be friends even if there is some sexual tension. Authors who “force” them into a relationship are missing such a good opportunity to develop a good platonic relationship between the two , which can include flirting and sexual banter. It can authors, trust me, it can !! Well, I want to believe it can. Maybe it also it bugs me because I feel if the best friend was ugly or whatever , this never would come up. Again, maybe it is just a pet peeve of mine an tons of others find it super romantic .
Final verdict
Even with my gripes over this, I still think this is an enjoyable and quick read.Still will probably add it to my favorite list and still I book I would like to own a copy of .
If you liked this , read these
- Pretty much any John Green Novel. Especially An Abundance of Katherines and Looking for Alaska. Feel this book is an odd of mix of those two.
