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  • Stuff: The Life of a Cool Demented Dude
  • April Spisak
Strong, Jeremy Stuff: The Life of a Cool Demented Dude; illus. by Matthew S. Armstrong. HarperTempest, 2007 [240p] Library ed. ISBN 0-06-084106-0$16.89 Trade ed. ISBN 0-06084105-2$15.99 Reviewed from galleys Ad Gr. 7-9

At fourteen, Stuff feels like his life isn't quite working out as planned: at home he is menaced by his new stepsister and stepmother and their man-hating rabbit, he and his girlfriend have very little in common, and his mundane life doesn't compare to the wild adventures of his best friend, Pete. Fortunately, he has his art to keep him happy—Stuff is the anonymous creator of a school newspaper comic series, the loose plot of which is based on his own life but the setting of which is an interplanetary world with an eighteen-eyed villain and superhero chicks—and he has inspiration in the form of the gorgeous and mysterious Sky, a new student in school. This comic series, six chapters of which appear in the novel, is visually [End Page 344] appealing and humorous, enlivening and exaggerating Stuff's fairly average life problems. Unfortunately, Stuff's secret art gig is mostly sidelined, making way for the central romance and domestic plots, both of which are entirely predictable. In addition, readers will catch on way quicker than Stuff that Pete is telling lies to make his life seem more enviable, that Sky is totally crushed out on Stuff, and that his new stepsister and stepmother are as uncomfortable and nervous as he is.  Even while his plodding revelations may be exasperating, being inside Stuff's head, which is full of trivia of the weirdest and most endearing sort (e.g., how many sausages went down with the Titanic) is still an amusing, if not memorable, experience. The included glossary will decipher some of the unfamiliar phrases used in this British import. Final art not seen.

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