Book #10

Hairstyles of the Damned
by Joe Meno

I went a bit, shall we say, more leisurely after that last political tirade, and read Hairstyles of the Damned, by Joe Meno. This is in some ways my own story, since the main character is a kid who is exactly my age, a junior in high school in 1990, who doesn't fit in, listens to heavy metal, is obsessed with girls but has no idea how to deal with them, and so on. It's not exactly my story, since this guy has much more trouble than I did in dealing with his problems, and he fucks up a lot more than I did. Not that I did nothing wrong, but man, this guy does almost nothing right.

I did like the narration; it sounds a lot like me and my own thoughts at that age and time. I liked the music references, though they went a little bit more punk than I ever did. The conversations were perfect, absolutely letter perfect. I loved the D&D scene, since that was exactly like my own experience (except they have a mom who brings them their own favored drinks in their own individualized Star Wars glasses, which they call chalices, and we were never that lucky). I appreciated the way he described the character's feelings about girls, but not the way the character acted with girls; I was that horny, but never that crappy to girls. And I was crappy enough -- this guy goes way too far. It made it hard for me to like him, which made it hard for me to accept his redemption at the end. That went both ways, as well: his friends treat him like crap, and so the way they make up at the end was not good enough for me.

Overall it was very good, but a little bit too dark and depressing. I did, however, absolutely love the lists of best heavy metal band names and horror flicks, as well as the possible ninja movie plots. The magic camouflage nunchucks were priceless.