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A review by matokah
Sprout by Dale Peck
4.0
It's interesting how a book can be at both times affecting and totally off-putting.
At its core, Sprout is a coming of age novel about a boy who's been uprooted from his East Coast home after the death of his mother. His father takes him to Kansas (although the choice of location was likely and primarily unplanned on his dad's part due to his grieving). From the age of 12 onwards, Sprout gets to acclimate to Midwestern conservative lifestyles around him, all while knowing he's a little different from the rest of his classmates.
This book gets four stars for the beginning and ending thirds. The beginning was engaging and interesting. The end left me reeling a bit on an emotional level.
Unfortunately, the middle of the book, though not poorly written or devised, got me a bit stuck. There's only so much angsty hipster teenage voice I can take before I just start remembering why I'm glad I'm no longer one.
Also, the gay teen in the closet - alcoholic father - motherless child spiels are all a bit cliche to me by now. I think Dale Peck did a good job of freshening them up and making them work for Sprout, but in some ways I wish he would've developed the relationship between father and son a little differently, with a bit more panache.
Overall though, if you're looking to read an LGBT-themed book where being gay is not the central focus of the novel, this one's mostly a winner. It's nice to see LGBT characters portrayed in a novel for purposes other than parading around their sexual orientation and making them out to be fundamentally different in some way than their straight classmates.
Kudos to Peck for creating a character gay teens can relate to, likely without ostracizing straight teens in the process.
At its core, Sprout is a coming of age novel about a boy who's been uprooted from his East Coast home after the death of his mother. His father takes him to Kansas (although the choice of location was likely and primarily unplanned on his dad's part due to his grieving). From the age of 12 onwards, Sprout gets to acclimate to Midwestern conservative lifestyles around him, all while knowing he's a little different from the rest of his classmates.
This book gets four stars for the beginning and ending thirds. The beginning was engaging and interesting. The end left me reeling a bit on an emotional level.
Unfortunately, the middle of the book, though not poorly written or devised, got me a bit stuck. There's only so much angsty hipster teenage voice I can take before I just start remembering why I'm glad I'm no longer one.
Also, the gay teen in the closet - alcoholic father - motherless child spiels are all a bit cliche to me by now. I think Dale Peck did a good job of freshening them up and making them work for Sprout, but in some ways I wish he would've developed the relationship between father and son a little differently, with a bit more panache.
Overall though, if you're looking to read an LGBT-themed book where being gay is not the central focus of the novel, this one's mostly a winner. It's nice to see LGBT characters portrayed in a novel for purposes other than parading around their sexual orientation and making them out to be fundamentally different in some way than their straight classmates.
Kudos to Peck for creating a character gay teens can relate to, likely without ostracizing straight teens in the process.