A review by iygatac_reads
We Ride Upon Sticks by Quan Barry

adventurous funny mysterious medium-paced
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.0

Listened to this as an audiobook. It was comedic and I appreciated the way the book showcased and reveled in the weirdness and wonder of being a teenage girl, but it just wasn't quite the book for me. I think part of if it is that it's very set in 1989 and if you weren't a teenager in the late 80s, the throwback references don't mean as much to you. But the very end did make me tear up because
of the whole, being in the company of your oldest friends and doing things together and reminiscing together thing
. The end definitely left me with a better feeling about the book than I was having throughout the rest of it.

If I'd been reading this as a physical book, I would have dnf'd it right within the first chapter. I knew that right away, but since I was listening to this during my walks, it was easy enough to just listen as someone else read it to me. But even with that, I kind of wonder if it would have felt different to read this as a physical book.  I appreciated how Barry managed to create several unique characters - all the girls from the team stick in my mind as distinct and interesting characters. 

Many descriptions I saw of the book before reading really made me think this was gonna be a different kind of book. But I'd never read anything by Quan Barry before, either.
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