Stuck in Neutral

Thoughts on Stuck in Neutral by Terry Trueman

Inside cover:
"Shawn McDaniel is an enigma and a miracle--except no one knows it, least of all his father. his life is not what it may seem to anyone looking at him. Not even those who love him best have any idea what he is truly like. In this extraordinary and powerful first novel, the reader learns to look beyond the obvious and finds a character whose spirit is rich beyond imagining and whose story is unforgettable.

Rxn:
WOW. I am flipping speechless. This sheds an entirely different light on those with severe cognitive and physical disabilities. Trueman has a sincere work of art here. You can tell that this subject is near to his heart... emotion floods each page. I love our protagonist, Shawn. From his writing, you can tell that he's a typical 14 year old kid who just wants everyone to come to grips with who he is. He's got a great talent for listening, remembering, description, and possesses a wicked sense of humor. There is only one problem: he has CP. Shawn can't communicate or control any part of himself. The way Trueman wrote it was great, though, because we get to see inside Shawn's head when no one else can. This makes us feel like he trusts us, while at the same time, builds up our empathy for his situation. This book would be a superb weapon against stereotypes about, as Shawn puts it, "retards." The only really depressing side of it is Shawn's father. Shawn gets the feeling that his dad is out to kill him to "end his suffering." We're met with tense moment at the end of the book, but we don't get to see what happens. It kind of stretches your mind about how a parent should "end the pain" of a child.

Overall, This book is stellar. I would certainly use it in my classroom. I think it would appeal to both guys and gals. The age range i think would be about 7th-10th grade, but I think everyone should read it. Definite WNSoA here. I polished it off in about 2 hours. it's only 114 pages. quick, easy read.

Quotes, of course!
"Of course, nobody knows I can read. Like the captain says in Cool Hand Luke, "What we have here is a failure to communicate." In my case that's kind of like calling the Grand Canyon a pothole" (9). LOL!

"Unfortunately, she dressed me in dark slacks, running shoes (I can't even walk), a white shirt, a blue blazer and a god-awful ridiculous red bow tie. Geez! I looked like Bing-Bong the Idiot Puppet Boy" (27). LMAO

"Those of use who can't walk just sit around "ahhhhhing" all day long. Teachers call this "vocalization." And when you've got half a dozen retarded teenaged vocalizers all "ahhhhing" at once, the noise is pretty unbelievable" (41). I love how he just casually explains all of this.

"I'm pretty sure I'm the only secret genius in our group. Pretty sure. You never know. It probably sounds like I think I'm better than the other retards. Maybe I sound cruel to talk about us the way I do. Well, I absolutely don't think I'm better. I don't think there's some kind of retard ranking, with me on top and all the little stupids below me. I use the word "retard" the way I use any word or words: dolphin, racehorse, sandwich, sidewalk, and apple. [...] Words just stand for the things they are and for what people mean them to stand for. A retard is not a normal person. Putting us in baseball caps and Reebok high-tops and teaching us to connect bolt A to nut B, to count back change, to stack plastic-covered packages of pork chops, none of these things will make us normal. Making us try to copy normal people's values, habits, hobbies, and traits will not change the fact that we retards are not normal folks. We are different! i call my classmates retards because that's the word people use when they look at us. Retard means "slow," but it's also a word used for a whole class of human beings who are only slow because normal people try to make everybody do things in the same ways and at the same pace. We retards are retards only because normal people call us that" (41-42).

"I know my mom and dad love me. They're required to by all the rules of doing the right thing. They love me, but they don't really know me, and they never will. They can't" (60). How true that is when you're a teenager.

"If my dad walked into this room right now and killed me, no one would ever know what I was really like. I want to love someone, and feel loved in return, for my real self. What if someone loved me enough to somehow break through and discover that I'm inside this body? That I am in here?" (60).