Blogging Grasshopper Jungle by Andrew Smith Part 3

The corn. It's unstoppable.

Actually, not yet. I haven't gotten that far.

I did a little casual reading this weekend. Normally, I would have devoured this whole book in those few free days, but I've read it before, and I'm trying to pace myself. Sort of trying to make it last until release day. Anyway, I read these sections this weekend:

GOING SOMEWHERE YOU SHOULDNT GO • ROBBY'S VOLCANO • DOORS THAT GO SOMEWHERE; DOORS THAT GO NOWHERE • CURFEW •
STUPID PEOPLE SHOULD NEVER READ BOOKS • THE DEATH-RAY GUN • ROBBY COULD HAVE BEEN A PREACHER • NEVER NAME A PIZZA JOINT STAN'S • IF YOU EVER WANT TO GET SHOT IN EALING

Without giving too much away, plot-wise we're still in the very beginning of the book. Still meeting the characters, getting to know the town, and having the pudding-skin slowly peeled away from the madness underneath.

Here are some of my favorite Austin Szerba one-line zingers from this part of the book:

I might just as well have been a blowup doll.

Boys who dance are genetic volcanoes.

It wasn't a lie; it was an abbreviation.

I was on the conveyor belt toward the paper shredder of history with countless scores of other sexually confused boys.

If we didn't hate being Lutherans so much, Robby could easily have been a preacher.

And finally, my favorite part of this section of the book is the not-chapter titled STUPID PEOPLE SHOULD NEVER READ BOOKS. In it, Austin describes how he wrote a book report on THE CHOCOLATE WAR, by Robert Cormier, which I recently read and reviewed (and loved), and it's so hilarious and typical and just completely authentic the way the administration at his Lutheran school responds.

I would tell you all about it, but you should really just read the book (GRASSHOPPER JUNGLE and THE CHOCOLATE WAR, for that matter).