Review of Winger by Andrew Smith!

Rating:

 

Winger had me laughing so hard that my sides hurt--actually hurt, which I've always heard about in novels but never actually experienced myself. It had me crying because it was just so damn funny and then it had me choking and coughing because I lost my breath. And now I have a permanent cough and I feel like I can hack up a lung, but you know what? It was completely worth it.

Winger inspires me to succeed in life, and it does so through its humor and its sadness. Andrew Smith is an author who is genuinely hilarious, and with all those monotonous and dull books out there, it feels like a gem. Truly. Never have I met a book that I felt so eager to protect, almost like a... baby?

Okay. That got weird way too fast. Let's backtrack a bit.

This was a hunk of a book, and I picked it up a few hours ago and finished it just now. It distracted me from my completely essential summer work for school, but oh well, because it was pretty fantastic. And for the majority of the time, I acted like a madwoman, letting out bursts of laughter randomly and then shutting up and continuing to read. I loved the illustrations, the graphs, the comic-like drawings, and pretty much everything about it. Andrew Smith sure can channel my inner immature side and bring it out full force, and Ryan Dean was a pretty amazing protagonist.

I thought this would just be a light and fun read, but at the end, it turned out to be so much more. Yes, this book was hilarious and upbringing, but it also sent me in an emotional tailspin once I finished. I didn't know whether to laugh, cry, or just stare into silence and contemplate my life and everything around me. Obviously, I chose the latter.

The ending took me completely by surprise, and I don't really know how to properly express it into these tangible words that you can read and understand. But I'm going to try.

Winger shows life, and that scared me sometimes. It was fun, it was dark, it was almost foul sometimes, but isn't that life? Isn't that just exactly how life is supposed to be? When I finished, I was in complete shock. It got serious all too fast, and (view spoiler in original review) not in a bad way. But yes, it hurt. The ending hurt, but in one of those it-hit-me-right-in-the-feels type way, and not that-made-me-uncomfortable type way. Okay, now I'm just rambling,

So while I am a sucker for a happy ending (there is a reason The Blue Castle is one of my favorite books), the ones that impact me the most are the ones that let me cry. The ones where I sob and sob and sob until my face is just a mess of tears and snot (The Book Thief, anyone?) are the ones that usually end up being my favorites. Because if I can connect so much that a fictional character can have that kind of impact on me, that author has something right going on.