Today I'm part of a promo tour for the last book in Geoff Herbach's Stupid Fast series. The first two books are called Stupid Fast and Nothing Special. This is a bit different from the usual genre of books I feature here but I liked the description and the way Herbach discusses the books and high school stereotypes on his website. Below you can find more information about the book as well as an exclusive guest post about the author's own time in high school - hint: it's hilarious XD
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Publisher: Sourcebooks Fire
Format: Paperback, 320 pages
Description:
Felton Reinstein has never been good with stress. Which is why he's seriously freaking out. Announcing his college choice on national TV?
It's a heart attack waiting to happen. Deciding on a major for the next four years of his life? Ridiculous! He barely even knows who he is anymore without football. And so...he embarks on The Epic Quest to Be Meaningful.
Which leads to:
1. Mentoring a freshman called Pig Boy.
2. The entire state of Wisconsin hating him.
3. His track coach suspending him.
4. The funniest viral video the world has ever seen.
5. A whole new appreciation for his family, his friends and what what's really important in life.
GUEST POST BY GEOFF HERBACH
HIGH SCHOOL
The Lover?
I was a geek and not a geek. I was a jock and not a jock. I tripped over my own feet and my ears turned red and I played the cello. Also, I turned into an all-conference football player and held the triple jump record at my school for twenty years.
When we think about jocks and geeks, we so often picture these monolithic stereotypes. We assume a gamer is a guy who sits in the basement all summer long drinking Code Red Mountain Dew, while the debate team captain reads the New York Times in the sunroom. Truth is, most kids exist in the brackish water between the extremes. I certainly did. I loved my cello. I also wanted to run linebackers over on the football field.
I’m not sure if this is a small-school deal, but no one ever said a single word to me about being an orchestra dork. No one called me names or pushed me around. I played with impunity. I wore a white dinner jacket and a bow tie. I loved Kris, the first cellist, so much. I wanted to take her curly head into my arms and kiss her hard.
Even though I played football, no one seemed scared of me or gave me any extra credit or an easier path. Football was just a game. I really loved Maureen, the head cheerleader. I wanted to take her sweet-smelling brown-haired head into my arms and kiss her hard.
I’m discovering, as I write this, that I wanted to kiss other girls. All girls. In fact, the feeling that dominates my remembrances of high school is colored, almost entirely, by how much I felt great love and admiration for nearly every girl I met. I wanted to make them soup. I wanted to cook them pizzas and mix them up some Crystal Lite.
I remember creating an air-conditioner out of buckets of ice and a large window fan for Maureen. She was hot after a day of lifeguarding at the local pool. I sat her in a chair in front of the fan and I ran to the store and bought her ice cream. I spoon fed her that ice cream.
My God, it’s possible I wasn’t a geek or a jock. It’s possible I was a love-obsessed freak jacked on hormones with random cello and football playing proclivities.
I wrote long love letters to Michelle Faherty. I never gave her a single one of them. I’d sit in the backyard, staring at her house across the block, and I would write about our marriage and our kids and our boat and our dog and how we’d make snow angels after Christmas dinner.
Thank God I didn’t have texting or messaging.
If I grew up now, I might be in jail for stalking. I rode my bike past Tracy Hallgren’s house 86 times one day. When I had a driver’s license, I drove past a giant constellation of girls’ houses. I wanted to make tacos for all of them. I wanted to give them all back rubs. I wanted to buy them all engagement rings.
If I’d had Facebook, I would’ve been so in all their businesses. If the only phone in the house hadn’t been connected to the wall in the kitchen, but always in my hand, I would’ve called them all constantly, texted them, messaged them. They’d have known how crazy I really was!
Because I had no phone and no internet, I enjoyed playing cello (next to Kris) and football, where Maureen kicked on the sideline. I never once went to jail.
I was a lover of the ladies.
What do you think of the book premise or guest post? Have you read any of the previous books in the series? Let me know in the comments :)
