Reviews

We Ride Upon Sticks: A Novel by Quan Barry

lesserjoke's review against another edition

3.0

This novel is told from the first-person plural perspective of a 1989 high school girls field hockey team, sometimes narrowing in on one specific member or another but generally seeming to come from the generalized collective, a la "we shivered at the prospects of this, some of us shivering with excitement and most of us shivering with dread." That's a striking stylistic choice that well fits the tale of these Salem teens taking oaths and making sacrifices to bind themselves to dark forces in order to gain confidence and win more of their games. The book also keeps somewhat coy about whether those rituals are ultimately real or not, caring more about how the would-be coven experiences them than if any demonic influence actually exists.

I'm on board with nearly all of that, and I think this story is a great illustration of just how weird and wild teenagers can be when investing totems with in-group meaning. It's a good representation of queerness without the constriction of labels, too. At the same time, however, I can't help complaining as a reader that there's basically no plot here: no stakes, no dangers, no particular objectives, no narrative structure, and no character growth. Should we be worried about these kids and the powers they might be unleashing? The text doesn't suggest that outright. Instead we simply hear matter-of-fact reporting of one thing they do and then the next, again and again and again.

Not all of the experimental elements work for me either, like one player's fringe of hair being anthropomorphized throughout with a personality and a name. And I never quite feel as though author Quan Barry reconciles the supposed legacy of local witchcraft with the acknowledged truth that those people executed in the seventeenth-century were innocent of the wicked charges laid against them -- far more innocent than the writer's protagonists, in fact.

I do like the prose and the basic idea behind this title, but it just seems like there are some significant pieces missing from it as a finished product.

[Content warning for gaslighting, rape, and gore.]

★★★☆☆

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kodowd's review against another edition

adventurous funny medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

erine's review against another edition

4.0

It wasn’t until reading another review that I realized this book was written from the “we” perspective. And the whole book was like that: gloriously odd in continually surprising ways. It also took me a bit to really appreciate that some of the main characters were body parts: the Claw (a high-flying bang), le Splotch (a hickey that was actually a growth), and the Contusion (a broken cheekbone).

And the weird just got more intense, while also becoming more familiar as the story continued. There was a lot about teen girls that was captured here that resonated.

shaymurph's review against another edition

adventurous hopeful fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.25

brizy's review against another edition

adventurous dark funny hopeful inspiring mysterious medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

taylorziegler's review against another edition

adventurous funny mysterious medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.5

ked_03's review against another edition

dark funny fast-paced

4.0

coco_lolo's review against another edition

4.0

What a ridiculously fun, heartwarming romp. Certain things I'd heard made me a tad leery of this book (it's so dense, it took forever for me to read thirty pages, etc.), including my initial experience reading a sample months ago, but We Ride Upon Sticks was so deliciously good. I loved the narrative voice, the collective we that, like the Claw or le Splotch, took on a mind of its own and became its own character. I loved the camaraderie between the field hockey team, and how each member felt like their own unique person, even if some of their quirks were overdone. I loved the look into 80s culture and how so much about society can be dramatically altered within a few decades. I just wish the last two chapters had held up to match the rest of the book.

eileenfun331's review against another edition

adventurous dark funny medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.0

renel's review against another edition

I really wanted to like this book but with a book with a lot of characters, 30 page chapters and the most dense storytelling without a clear introduction and just being thrown into the story you need to be in the right headspace and I am not right now (too distracted by the continuous eras tour setlist just bopping around in my head)