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A review by shanaqui
Sticker by Henry Hoke
reflective
medium-paced
1.0
Unfortunately, I seem to be having bad luck with my Object Lessons choices lately. I enjoy the ones which pick into the history of an everyday object and try to understand it, like Personal Stereo and Blue Jeans. I'm less a fan of the memoir type, and Henry Hoke's Sticker falls into that category. It's a life told through tenuous connections with stickers, from the stickers his mother put on bottles of dangerous household cleaning products to the parental advisory stickers on CDs and onward.
There's absolutely a place in this world for this kind of memoir, and the story of a gay kid growing up in Charlottesville is a story worth telling. I want to be clear that it's not that I don't think the story should be told at all. I'm just not a fan of it in this series, and nor is it something I particularly seek out to read (nor memoir in general). Just not for me.
So, if you're looking for something that discusses the history or wider cultural relevance of stickers, this ain't remotely it. Which is a pity, because that book would be fascinating. This book is about Henry Hoke.
There's absolutely a place in this world for this kind of memoir, and the story of a gay kid growing up in Charlottesville is a story worth telling. I want to be clear that it's not that I don't think the story should be told at all. I'm just not a fan of it in this series, and nor is it something I particularly seek out to read (nor memoir in general). Just not for me.
So, if you're looking for something that discusses the history or wider cultural relevance of stickers, this ain't remotely it. Which is a pity, because that book would be fascinating. This book is about Henry Hoke.