Going Nowhere Faster

Stan Smith has the world's dullest name, and the world's dullest life to go with it. At 17, the former junior chess champion turned "Town's Laziest Register Monkey at the Town's Only Video Store" has no car, no college, and, of course, no girl. If that weren't pathetic enough, he's got an organic-food-freak vegan mother, an eccentric inventor father, a dead-end job, a dog with a flatulence problem, and a former classmate threatening to kill him. With a 165 IQ, Stan was expected to Be Something and Go Somewhere. But when all he has is a beat-up old bike that keeps getting vandalized, he's going nowhere, faster.

KLIATT

Poor Stan Smith. Aside from his unfortunate name and his compulsion to make lists, he has a spindly body—fodder for bullies. He won a chess tournament in junior high school, and despite his IQ of 165, he has no desire to go college. Instead, he wants to write scripts, but all of his cliche-filled treatments end up in the trash. He is currently employed by the town's only video store and lives at home with his 6'2" tall mother, a militant vegan, who runs an organic food store and is best friends with an overweight and phony guru, and a bearded inventor-father whose inventions never quite work: everything tilts to the left, and he fills up his car from the fryer at fast food joints. Stan is also convinced that Chad Tilford, the boyfriend of his heart's desire, is out to kill him, and indeed, strange and menacing events do keep occurring. Yet no one believes he's in danger: not his cool best friend, not his court-ordered psychiatrist, and not his beer-guzzling and over-permed boss Keith. Written in a comically manic style, this narrative goes from one unlikely scenario to another. And, the reader goes right along with it because the story is both compelling and hilarious, the main character neurotic but likable, and his dilemma like everyone else's: trying to figure out who he is and what he wants to be. Recommended for mature younger teens and older teens.

Like Stan Smith, Sean Beaudoin spent his childhood in a small town. He later earned a B.A. in photography, which he used as a springboard into a variety of jobs: construction laborer, bus boy, used book buyer, hotel desk clerk, camp counselor, statue repairman, dealer of jazz records on eBay, and reluctant telemarketer. He now resides in San Francisco with his wife and daughter.