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Huge

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Saved by Susan J. Wisniewski
on April 11, 2009 at 2:43:23 pm

Plot: Twelve-year-old Eugene Smalls is better described by his surname than by the nickname he insists people use: Huge. Undersized and over-intelligent, he is a misfit in his small New Jersey town, which fuels his rage and leads to a reputation as the meanest and angriest kid there. Summer vacation finds Huge lonely and unoccupied, so when his grandma, who introduced him to Raymond Chandler and Dashiell Hammett, pays him to find out who vandalized the sign at her retirement home, he jumps at the chance. In the course of his investigation, Huge learns much about himself and the other kids in his town.

General thoughts: Great character development. Plot not as strong; moved slowly. While there was a lot of humor in the book, Huge was too miserable for me to enjoy it much. Also, there was a sexual aspect to his relationship with his older sister that was creepy. Though the book was well written, I did not enjoy it until maybe the last 50 pages, and that might have been because the end was in sight.

3 words/phrases that describe this book: coming-of-age story; humorous but heart-wrenching

This book is similar to: I cannot think of anything I've read with quite the feel of this book. I saw a couple people on the internet comparing it to The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, but the two main characters had a very different feel to me. Someone also compared it to The Sleeping Father, but I've not read that and can't comment.

Would I suggest/to whom: I'm not sure to whom to recommend this. There's humor, as I said, but it isn't a light read, since Huge is a pretty miserable guy. Also, he's really angry, to the point of being sort of scary. Readers objecting to coarse language or sexual situations would not enjoy this book. I was surprised that they are looking to cross over into the YA market. The sexual content and language would make it inappropriate for most middle school kids, but it would be hard to sell a high school student on a book featuring a sixth-grader.

Would this be good for a book discussion? Yes, there's a lot to talk about.