This week’s Road Trip Wednesday at YA Highway asks, Who is your favorite comedian or funny book and/or movie? I don’t follow comedy much, so I’m not sure I have a fave comedian. If I had to name one, it would be Jon Stewart. Funny movies–I don’t see a lot of them, period, and the ones I see tend not to be comedies. I liked Bridesmaids (which I saw on a flight back from The Netherlands), but I don’t usually like that kind of gross-out humor.
Books, though, I can come up with three right off the top of my head. Two more recent offerings in YA, one from the ’60s that I originally read in high school.
Newest first. Fellow Tu Books author Kimberly Pauley’s Cat Girl’s Day Off was a silly, goofy, fun, funny laugh-out-loud treat. I liked it so much, it was my RTW Best Book in April 2012.
Second, John Green & David Levithan’s Will Grayson, Will Grayson was a gem. Back in the day (when I was an actual teen reading books about teens), a book like Will Grayson, Will Grayson would have been called a “coming of age” book. I love how the two main characters and excellent secondary characters (the two Wills and Tiny) are all so beautifully drawn. I disliked the second Will Grayson character almost immediately, but he had such a fantastic character arc, I loved him at the end.
Third, Richard Bradford’s Red Sky at Morning is an actual “coming of age” story that very much deserves to be read by today’s audience. Published in the mid-sixties, the story takes place during WWII. The main character is Josh Arnold, and his father is going away to war. Josh and his mother have to move from Mobile, Alabama to Corazon Sagrado, New Mexico. Red Sky at Morning is also a “fish out of water” story as Josh, used to city life in the South, has to adjust to a small town in the mountains of New Mexico where he’s in the minority (most of the town is Hispanic). This is one of those books that will have you roaring with laughter, then sobbing within a few pages. A wonderful book.
How about you? Read any good, funny books?
karensandler 