Michael KunReseñas

I requested this all the way back in July 2017 and when the library unexpectedly added it to their collection this year, I couldn’t remember why I’d wanted to read it. But I’m very glad the library reminded me of its existence -- I was quickly hooked.

It’s 1982 and Cath has gone off to college, while her neighbour/school friend Scott has stayed home to work in his dad’s clothing store. Through letters, they support each other as they deal with transitions, relationship woes and family dramas. Their letters are poignant and funny, with a running in-joke referring to a classmate’s “We Are Still Tornadoes” graduation speech. I like that they have to learn how to translate their friendship into written words, and make mistakes along the way. Their letters also believably convey what happens when they meet in-person -- sometimes it takes several letters to piece together the full story and that kept me wondering.

(My only quibble would be that it ends a bit abruptly, and I do think the authors could have found a believable way to have a letter tell us a bit more of what happens, rather than relying so much on implying. But anyway.)

Did I tell you that my dad is giving me a 10% discount off anything at the store? How cool is that? (I’m being serious. I really want to know how cool that is. I think the answer is, “Not very,” but I’m not sure.)½

4.5 stars.

We Are Still Tornadoes by Michael Kun & Susan Mullen is a humorous, poignant and heartwarming novel. Set in 1982, lifelong friends Scott Agee and Cath Osteen exchange letters as Cath goes off to college while Scott stays in their hometown to work in his family owned clothing store.

Although Cath is excited about attending college, she is a little homesick as she settles into dorm life. Through her letters to Scott, she fills him on her somewhat quirky roommate, freshman shenanigans and her surprisingly close friendship with Jane. From her first college romance to struggling to keep up in her classes, she humorously and sometimes sarcastically keeps her best friend apprised of everything going on her life. Her letters take on an unexpected serious tone as her first holiday visit home approaches and Cath finds out unsettling, life changing information about her parents.

Back home, Scott is adjusting to working in the clothing store and while he is not exactly overjoyed with his career path, he is appreciative that working with his dad has improved their relationship. With self-deprecating humor, he minimizes his decision to coast through high school but as the months pass, he is rather contemplative as he tries to understand why he chose not to focus on going to college. Forming a band with some of his friends provides Scott the opportunity to try his hand at songwriting and they reach a measure of success performing gigs at local establishments. While the majority of his letters are light-hearted and humor-filled, they become much more serious after an unexpected loss.

Although Cath and Scott do talk on the phone and see one another in person, these events are only referenced during letters they write after the fact. Their letters occasionally cross in the mail so there are a handful of slightly confusing out of sequence exchanges but the next letter helps make sense of things. The more serious aspects of their correspondence are deftly balanced with their playful banter and personal jokes. The occasional misunderstanding sometimes leads to angry exchanges but their longstanding friendship easily survives these squabbles.

An absolutely charming novel with a nostalgic vibe due to music references, mix tapes and letter exchanges, We Are Still Tornadoes by Michael Kun & Susan Mullen has a refreshingly unique storyline and a wonderful cast of characters. While the overall tone of the novel is upbeat, Cath and Scott also undergo serious, life-altering events that strengthen their friendship. All in all, it is a captivating read that I absolutely loved and highly recommend to readers of all ages.

The romance aspect of the book is slightly predictable, but that doesn't take away from the entertainment quality of the book itself. Readers who are fans of romance, especially young adult romance, will find this book endearing. Fans of writers like Sarah Dessen will definitely enjoy Kun and Mullen's writing. Read my full review at Between-the-Shelves!

It would have been four stars, but they went there—boy and girl best friends must of course, of course realize they're in love with each other—with the ending.

In this Young Adult novel, Cath and Scott have grown up together as neighbors and best friends. Cath goes off to college while Scott stays home and goes to work for his dad at his clothing business. However, they maintain their friendship through a series of letters. It is through these letters that we learn more about these characters, their families and friends, as well as the important events in their respective lives. It is a sweet love story.

This epistolary novel is set in the 1980’s, perhaps to account for the exchange of letters rather than emails, phone calls, or texts by the two central protagonists. The correspondence is between two best friends (since early childhood): Cath, who is beginning her freshman year at Wake Forest University, and Scott, a habitual “underachiever” who stayed in their hometown and is working in his father's clothing store.

What makes the book even more interesting is the fact that the two authors, a male and a female, each took the part of one of the protagonists, and wrote the book in a way analogous to the book’s format. As Susan Mullen reports in an interview:

“Primarily, we wrote it by swapping letters. We talked at the outset about the framework of the book and the characters, how it would take place over the course of one school year when Cath was a freshman in college and Scott was at home working in his dad’s clothing store. We had some key events that we wanted to hit, and a general idea of how the book would end – which we eventually scrapped – and then we just started writing.”

(They used emails however!)

The story is cute, if predictable. Cath and Scott have always dated other people, but it is each other to whom they repeatedly turn. Eventually they figure it out what this means.

Discussion: I liked the idea of the book, but I had a couple of quibbles with the story. One is that I didn’t feel the chemistry between Scott and Cath. Scott seems way less mature, and his intelligence comes through inconsistently. This is odd because when you read interviews between the two authors, there is a huge amount of chemistry, and they seem very well matched. I got the impression that Kun wasn’t clear at first on who he wanted Scott to be, although later in the book, the character evened out more.

Second, I thought the references to the 80’s were a bit ham-handed. There were a number of sentences in their correspondence like these:

“Oh, speaking of music, have you heard the new album by Prince? It’s called 1999. I’ve never heard anything like it.”

“Speaking of Dorothy, she came home from Thanksgiving with a copy of the new Michael Jackson album. It’s called Thriller, and it’s amazing with a capital A.”

“..we went to see this band that she told me about called R.E.M.”

On a positive note, I enjoyed the repeated riffs on and puns about the “We Will Always Be Tornadoes” graduation speech by their high school class president. I also liked the clever way that the letters “filled in” what happened when the two protagonists met up in person or talked on the phone. And finally, I loved finding actual interactions on the web between the authors about the book; the interviews were way more entertaining than the book itself!½

This is a fun read. The protagonist is sometimes hard to understand, but overall lovable in the end. I especially like the author's sense of humor with regards to the human spirit. I've actually met the author and he is as funny off the page as he is on. I once compared his writing to having a tipsy glass of wine with an old friend in a book review for my old bookstore.
½

I have a hard time when a book ends unsatisfactorily. By unsatisfactorily, I mean not the way I wanted it to end. It was a good book that I enjoyed almost all the way through. I enjoyed it enough to seek out his other book, which I didn't finish.

Michael Kun's Everybody Says Hello is a wonderful, funny epistolary (it means "consisting of letters," I looked it up a minute ago) novel. We deduce Sid Straw's adventures through his writing to his family, friends, co-workers, Heather Locklear, Obama, a black cop, and transvestite he met online. Everbody Says Hello is a perfect light read, and it was just a whole lot of fun--if not tummy-hurting hilarious.

Why I Wanted To Read It:
I was feeling hipster and wanted to read something that nobody heard about. Ok, not completely (even though I do lean towards box from big publishing houses.)
I came across LOLing at Books an article by Morgan Macgregor on BookRiot. And I was curious just how funny Kun was since he's capable of making someone laugh to the point she had to get off the bus.

Humor
It was a funny book, I chuckled a bit but I didn't find myself laughing out loud (even though I really wanted to.) I "get" the humor, but maybe timing just wasn't right or the jokes were too overt. Now I am having doubts about my sense of humor. Is there something wrong with me? I did like that the humor didn't depend on giving me a host of expletives (in fact, I'm sure there were no expletives even when Sid was furious, which made me admire the guy even more.) And didn't have fart jokes. HALLELUJAH!
The best way I can describe the humor is if you mixed Thoughts From Paris with E-mails From an Asshole (both are hilarious blogs I love) and sprinkled it with Becky Bloomwood (from Sophie Kinsella's Shopaholic series.) Not a good description? Well, I tried.

Sid Straw Is Just So Likable:
He is the perfect protagonist, a nice guy who sometimes does stupid things. You just can't dislike the guy; at one point, he feels guilty about ripping a page out of the hotel's yellow pages and proceeds to send the hotel twenty five bucks to replace it. And then sometimes he does hilarious things like trying to get the hotel to change "adult movie" into "Harry Potter" on his receipt. But somehow he just keeps getting stuck in unfortunate situations which leads to one misunderstanding after another--like accidentally sending a cat into a coma.

It's A "Sequel"
I didn't rad the first book (The Locklear Letters), but I don't think it hindered too much with the story and Everybody Says Hello can be read as a standalone. It makes me sad I don't know what this Eat Wheaties thing is all about though. Now I feel left out of a joke. I guess it's a good excuse to buy The Locklear Letters then.

Pace:
This book only looks gigantic, but you'll finish it in no time--if not because of the humor, because of the one word pages (don't worry, it's not another New Moon, nobody is suffering an emotional meltdown.) It may not look like it, but Everybody Says Hello is a very quick read. I wasn't sure where the story was going to go since unlike other novels, it doesn't leave much room for action and didn't have much of a plot, but I was very happy with the ending and the flow of the novel. My only caveat is that I forgot half the people he was exchanging postcards/letters with towards the end.

Stuff I Learned From Everybody Says Hello
Hiring a "lawyer," and threatening to file lawsuits is the best thing that can happen to you; and may also prove to be very lucrative. TV may not mean television. And guys asking to see your feet may not be because they have a foot fetish...but it's because they want to check if you are a girl.

Rating: 4* of five

The Book Report: Picking up where 2003's The Locklear Letters left off, Sid Straw is leaving Baltimore in his rear-view mirror for the sunny, balmy climes of 2005 California, home of go-go-go and way too much money. On his way to take a job at Velocity Computers, Sid sends letters and postcards home to his recently-ex girlfriend, his mom and dad, his adored little nephew, as well as ahead to his college friend Heather...Locklear, that is, blonde bombshell actress...and his future employer's various official departments on every conceivable subject. He's particularly concerned that he get his personalized letterhead. Since the whole novel is letters from Sid, all 306pp of it, one can easily see why.

Hotel managers hear about bad in-room television service (no details, no spoilers, too funny to ruin), the company HR prune-lipped tightass hears about the letterhead, along with apologies for calling one of the accounting clerks fat while on an online dating site; Sid learns that his enthusiasm for old television shows doesn't mean it's safe to use the handle "TVLover123" on that online dating site, resulting in a hilarious exchange of notes with someone called "TVGirl," Heather, his college friend talks him down off ledges and bails him out of jail, all thanked by courteous notes...but Sid goes so far as to write notes to the hero cop who arrested him for cat poisoning (not a joke) even though he's innocent and who is suspended from the police force after Sid accuses him of being a violent racist which he didn't and this leads the Los Angeles Times investigative reporter to start a series of false and misleading articles about SYD Straw a transient/vagrant cat-poisoning liar (with the same name as a famous folk singer) which leads to...

...spiraling insanity, lawsuits, and ultimately one of the most surprising, touching, delightful, feel-good happy endings I've read in this century.

My Review: Everyone knows Sid Straw. Annoying, well-meaning, just a little bit socially tone-deaf, a little too intense, but a nice guy who never means to cause the mayhem he's always causing around himself. He's not exactly one of the gang and not exactly not. But he's always busy with something, and usually it blows up in his face.

Boy howdy, does this new job blow up in his face! A couple megatons go off under his feet when he gets to the new job and deals with a go-go, rock-'em-sock-'em boss who wants to be called "Mav" because it was Tom Cruise's nickname in Top Gun. There's even a movie poster for it in the conference room. And Sid becomes "Goose." And there's another guy called "Iceman." Could it get any cheesier? And yet, through Sid's lens, he's workin' it hard to keep the job, when the whole fat-co-worker incident conflates with the whole bad-in-room-movie incident and, well, bye bye job.

A return visit to Caesar's Palace in Las Vegas to assuage his misery (and use the paid-fo, non-refundable room) causes one of the funniest incidents in the book, where his cranky response to the management's attempt at humor meets his unresolved love for the girl who dumped him, thus causing him no end of agony and getting the Las Vegas Health Department to quarantine him for almost a week as a suspected disease vector.

This book is a screwball comedy waiting to be filmed. It is quick, both in pace and in wit, and it is flawlessly self-centered as the best comedies are, and it keeps the pages flying, as the most enjoyable books do. Michael Kun, author of You Poor Monster and A Thousand Benjamins, has a deft hand, a keen eye, and a kind heart to go with his quick, acid-tipped tongue.

Didn't take as long as my reading dates made it seem. Good, lighthearted read, some laughs. Overall quite humorous. Some missing elements though.½

A somewhat affecting first novel that I was first attracted to by the title, and then happy to be reading a well-written book about relationships, loss, devotion and impermanence. Much of the way through I caught myself thinking that this read just like an Anne Tyler novel, until I got to the last paragraph which is either an homage to or a rip-off of the last paragraph of Tyler's "The Accidental Tourist". I hope it is homage.½

I had a tough time getting started on this one. Even though it wasn't a difficult read, I felt lost on its direction. Maybe I'll try it again.