Five Flavors of Dumb [Paperback]

Antony John (Author)

Book Description

Release date: September 29, 2011

Winner of the 2011 Schneider Family Teen Book Award!

The Challenge: Piper has one month to get the rock band Dumb a paying gig.

The Deal: If she does it, Piper will become the band's manager and get her share of the profits.

The Catch: How can Piper possibly manage one egomaniacal pretty boy, one talentless piece of eye candy, one crush, one silent rocker, and one angry girl? And how can she do it when she's deaf?

Piper can't hear Dumb's music, but with growing self-confidence, a budding romance, and a new understanding of the decision her family made to buy a cochlear implant for her deaf baby sister, she discovers her own inner rock star and what it truly means to be a flavor of Dumb.

--This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

Editorial Reviews

From School Library Journal

Gr 9 Up–When in a rush of uncommon bravado high school senior Piper offers to manage Dumb, her school's most popular student rock band, her family thinks it must be a joke. A retiring student and member of the chess team, Piper is neither the stereotypical band manager nor a typical teen: she is profoundly hearing impaired. After she discovers that her parents have spent the majority of her college money to treat her infant sister's deafness with cochlear implants, Piper's quest to get Dumb a paying gig leads her to consider her managerial role as a potential source of income. John's novel is written with a reverence for popular music–particularly the work of Jimi Hendrix and Kurt Cobain–and a respect for its ambitious teen characters. Although Piper's hearing is a characterizing detail that could have been used solely to add a type of politically incorrect and screwball humor to the story, her abilities are seen as assets: while lip reading allows her access to public conversation, she is not above using sign language to obscure her intentions. The parallel attention to Piper's hearing family and the strain her parents' decision to treat her sister with cochlear implants adds to the greater story and informs the novel's direction and ending in a satisfying way. Set in the Pacific Northwest, this rock-and-roll novel joins the ranks of Randy Powell's equally thoughtful Tribute to Another Dead Rock Star (Farrar, 2003) and Blake Nelson's Rock Star Superstar (Viking, 2004).–Amy S. Pattee, Simmons College, Boston. (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

Review

"I loved it and laughed out loud. Hilarious and so smart. Dumb proves that everyone, no matter what, deserves to be heard." -Catherine Gilbert Murdoch, author of Dairy Queen

--This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Age Range: 12 and up
  
• Paperback: 352 pages
• Publisher: Speak (September 29, 2011)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0142419435
• ISBN-13: 978-0142419434
• Product Dimensions: 8.3 x 5.5 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (43 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #504,947 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Antony John was born in England and raised on a balanced diet of fish and chips, obscure British comedies, and ABBA's Greatest Hits. In a fit of teenage rebellion, he decided to pursue a career in classical music, culminating in a BA from Oxford University and a PhD from Duke University. Along the way, he worked as an ice cream seller on a freezing English beach, a tour guide in the Netherlands, a chauffeur in Switzerland, a barista in Seattle, and a university professor. Writing by night, he spends his days as a stay-at-home dad--the only job that allows him to wear his favorite pair of sweatpants all the time. He lives in St. Louis with his family.

Visit him at: http://www.antonyjohn.net

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

16 of 18 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars A novel with so much heart that it is bursting at the seams, one of the best books I have read all year. March 7, 2012

By Christina (Ensconced in YA) TOP 500 REVIEWER

Format:Paperback

Five Flavors of Dumb is hard to describe and simultaneously do it justice-- most superficially, it's about a band named Dumb and a deaf girl aptly named Piper who serves as their manager.

Things I loved, and there are many. As a reader, my heart and soul is in characters, their development and their relationships with each other. And boy, was this book a rich breeding ground for that love. In most typical books, there are one or two characters who stand out in my mind as favorites, but in this book I loved them all. Each of Piper's family members is deftly drawn, loved and cherished. Both parents, Finn, and even little Grace is given their due. I was very moved by the conflict between Piper and her father. The pinnacle of that conflict was done pitch perfectly, and I remember gripping the pages, willing myself to get through it. I felt everything that she was feeling, and at the same time, I felt everything that her father was feeling. I loved how Piper and Finn started to see their father as a real person and not just as their father.

Don't even get me started on the band members. I will always have a special place in my heart (and a bit of a crush) on Ed Chen. Tash was vibrantly painted, a splash of color on every page. And Kallie. Somehow I knew she had a big story to tell, and I wasn't disappointed.

I am also a musician and loved all descriptions of the music, but the way the story is told, even non-music fanatics will be drawn into the rich description of the music and the band, the stories of the bands from the past and the great artists that came before.

Other surprises: I cried. Twice. Which I do not do often. And two twists that I completely got wrong. And loved that I was wrong, because the answers were so right.

The last thing I want to add is that I never questioned that Piper was a girl. I was so amazed that Antony John got the tone of a teenage girl so right. I was completely impressed because that is hard to do for even a female writer.

If it's not already patently obvious, I was floored by this novel even though I started it with high expectations-- it completely delivered in ways that I never expected. Antony John will be a force to be reckoned with in the YA genre. I will definitely be following his novels eagerly for years to come.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars So good that I want to dye my hair pink March 7, 2011

By Ashleigh VINE™ VOICE

Format:Hardcover|Amazon Verified Purchase

Also appears on The Screaming Nitpicker.

After mouthing off to her high school's "it" band Dumb, Piper is stuck being their manager and has one month to get them a paying gig. She doesn't want to do it, but her parents raided her college fund to pay for an operation for her sister and Piper needs money. However, it's going to take a lot of work to turn Dumb into a commercial band. Between recruiting new members (one of whom lacks any talent), keeping the five flavors of Dumb from killing each other, pulling some cunning tricks to get Dumb places, fighting and making up with her family, and learning what music's all about, Piper has a lot on her plate. She can handle it. Well, she can if people will stop using her deafness as an excuse why she can't handle it.

I have heard nothing but praise for this book and was dying to get my paws on it and read it. That praise? Yeah, it is all deserved. This book is so good that it gave me the strong urge to cut my hair and dye it Atomic Pink.

It's not everyday you see characterization this strong in a young adult novel anymore. Get this: For once, the characters are deeper than puddles! Piper, as our heroine, is not perfect. She isn't always nice, she tricks people many times, and she provokes people more than once. She's also cunning, good at finding loopholes, and comes to see the band as more than a way to make money. Instead of her deafness characterizing her and being a disability, it's just another part of her. In fact, the abilities of lip-reading and signing that she gained because of her "disability" turn out to be valuable assets that help Dumb get ahead. She is deaf, but deaf is not her.

But the real star of this novel? That would be Kallie Sims, the "perfect girl" deconstructed. Initially, Piper dislikes her for being so perfect and as the novel goes on, the reader discovers that Kallie isn't perfect; she's a girl just like Piper. Kallie has a not-so-ideal home life, her fashionable clothes (that are bought with her mother's employee discount) get made fun of by her "friends" for being last season, and while she loves music with all her heart and connects with it in a way few people do, she can't play an instrument to save her life. This perfect girl is as imperfect as everyone else and even when she takes center stage late in the novel, she is still just a girl. I love Kallie. I'd love to see a sequel one day through her point of view.

Other characters, like angry green-haired guitarist Tash and Piper's music-loving brother/translator Finn, get their touches of depth too. Even Piper's parents get some depth! How often are the parents more than just background characters like this? The scenes where Piper fought with her dad or exhibited jealousy towards her baby sister Grace genuinely tugged at my heart strings. In fact, this had to be one of the most "real" novels I've ever read. Everything about it, from Piper's discovery of what music is about and who she is to the fight she has with her family to the fight the band has among themselves, felt so real to me.

Five Flavors of Dumb also gave me the worst case of novel whiplash I've ever had. On one page, I would be laughing so hard (my favorite quote came off page two and to preserve the magic, I will not speak of it) that I was given strange looks by other people if I was reading in public; in a few more pages, I would be ready to bawl like a baby because of any particular scene I found heart-wrenching. My poor Mom thought I was having mood swings! And keep in mind, of course, that I'm not an emotional reader. If I weren't so lazy, I would make a "made me cry" and "made me laugh" tag so people could see just how rare it gets.

Five Flavors of Dumb is now one of my favorite books of all time and I don't slap that label on books lightly. Only four other books have that title and this one right here is number five. I recommend this book to absolutely anyone. As long as you don't hate music (especially rock music), I think you'll enjoy Five Flavors of Dumb.

7 of 8 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars An addicting and inspiring read! November 27, 2010

By Lawral Wornek

Format:Hardcover

John could have made the band of high schoolers trying to make it big the set-up a whole book in and of itself, albeit a much less satisfying one. Instead of being a book all about the band, this is a book all about how Piper, their manager, deals with them. But it's also a book about Piper and her life at school and at home. Woven through her parents reactions to Dumb are Piper's reactions to her family. Her maternal grandparents (now deceased) were both deaf and very into deaf culture. They instilled a sense of pride in Piper, along with the sense that she has the ability to do anything she wants to do regardless of her lack of hearing. Piper's mother and brother are both fluent in ASL (American Sign Language), but her father does not sign at all. Her infant sister was born deaf. In her, Piper saw a kind of ally. Or, she did until her parents raided Piper's college fund to get her sister a cochlear implant (a surgically implanted device that can restore hearing to severely deaf persons). Betrayal and closing doors all in one. She hopes Dumb will be her ticket out of town and to the college of her dreams.

The juxtaposition of why Dumb's different members, Piper included, are in the band (money, fame, the music (said very seriously), and various crushes on other band members) cause problems. All the band drama keeps this from turning into a problem novel about a moderately severe deaf girl in a hearing family and high school. Though the fact that Piper is deaf comes up over and over and over again in her dealings with various people in the music business as well as with the band itself (and, sadly, her family), it is never Piper's defining characteristic, just as Kallie's skin color is never hers (though she is proud of her mother's self-proclaimed status as "the first African American to go grunge" (p160)*).

The best part about Five Flavors of Dumb really is Piper herself. She has such a strong voice, sense of herself, and talent for sarcasm. I also loved her developing relationship with the girls of Dumb, Tasha and Kallie. I LOVE great girl friendship books, and by the end this one totally fit the bill. And watching Piper's rock music education was fabulous (the Seattle setting helped a bit). I grew up listening to Hendrix and other musicians of that era (thanks Dad), and I was in middle school and just getting into Nirvana when Kurt Cobain killed himself (thanks Johanna). I can't imagine coming to these musicians as a senior in high school. Seeing them through Piper and the rest of Dumb was like "meeting" them all over again.

Book source: ARC picked up at ALA

*Quotes and page numbers are from an uncorrected proof and may not match the published copy.