Stoner & Spaz

Starred review from February 3, 2003
With a youthful edge to his voice, Hamilton brings a rich credibility to the roles of teenagers Ben and Colleen, stars of Koertge's sharp and emotionally moving YA novel. As two very different kinds of outcasts, drug-addicted Colleen and cerebral palsy–afflicted Ben forge an unlikely friendship that helps each of them blossom. And in the author's true-to-life style, setbacks, successes and uncharted territory await the duo on the path of self-discovery. Hamilton handily masters Koertge's smart, contemporary repartee between the protagonists, capturing each note of sarcasm and humor as well as lots of film and pop-culture references. Hamilton also adds welcome shades of color to supporting characters, including Ben's stuffy, overprotective grandmother. This winning performance, which envisions Ben and Colleen as likable and sympathetic—warts and all—will please fans of Koertge's work and surely gain him new admirers. Ages 12-up.

February 2, 2004
A 16-year-old boy with cerebral palsy who keeps afloat on his black humor and his love of movies, falls for a beautiful drug addict. "Perhaps not since Harold and Maude
has there been such a likable unlikely romance," said PW
in a starred review. Ages 14-up.

Starred review from April 22, 2002
Perhaps not since Harold and Maude
has there been such a likable unlikely romance. "Since I've been pretty much treading water all day, the marquee of the Rialto Theatre looks like the prow of a ship coming to save me," begins narrator Ben Bancroft, a 16-year-old who has cerebral palsy. Koertge's (The Brimstone Journals) opening scene sets in motion the novel's key elements: Ben's black humor and his love for movies, both of which keep him afloat, and his chance face-to-face meeting there with Colleen Minou, a drug addict (who looks like Helena Bonham Carter "in Fight Club... pretty in an edgy, ruined way"). After Ben meets a new neighbor who happens to have made a short documentary for a film class (the novel, after all, is set in Los Angeles), he starts one of his own, High School Confidential. Thanks to Ben's razor-sharp perceptions and Koertge's sophisticated plotting, every character here seems fresh and interesting, from high school would-be stand-ins like jocks and unwed mothers to Ben's grandmother, who has raised him since his mother took off. For instance, when Ben interviews a gay teen for his film, he asks, " 'Do you ever stand in front of the mirror and wish you were different?' 'Only every day.' 'Do you want to be not gay?' 'No, I want to be better looking.' " The euphoric highs and rocky cliffs of Ben's blossoming relationship with Colleen echo the girl's fight against her addiction. Ben's pragmatic point of view, developed over years of struggling with his handicap and his mother's abandonment, serve readers well as the novel reaches its realistic close. Ages 14-up.

August 12, 2002
Margaret Lucas Cavendish was born in 1623 into a wealthy Essex family. She received the typical education afforded a young woman of her station—little beyond the rudiments deemed sufficient to permit her to take her place as wife to a nobleman and mother to his children. Though she did remain happily married to William Cavendish, marquess of Newcastle, for almost 30 years, little about the rest of her life was in any way conventional. She followed her Royalist husband into exile in France and Holland during the civil war; while abroad, she wrote and, even more extraordinarily, published under her own name a striking body of philosophical speculations, poetry and plays. On their return to England, she successfully managed her husband's estates. She was driven by a most unfeminine ambition to leave some mark behind and managed indeed to achieve a prominent place in English intellectual life. How could someone whom Virginia Woolf believed to be "the crazy Duchess... a bogey to frighten clever girls with" do so much while so mad? Whitaker's answer is simple. By carefully examining the evidence, she reveals that Margaret's madness, like her nickname, is a 19th-century artifact, rooted in a Victorian revulsion at her earthiness and energy. Along the way, Whitaker, in her first book (she has a Ph.D. in history of science from Cambridge University) provides a lucid and fascinating account of Margaret's life, work and times. In recent years, there has been increased scholarly attention given to Margaret Cavendish; this impressive biography can only generate further interest. 16 pages of photos not seen by PW.