Redheaded Reviews: Five Flavors of Dumb by Antony John

Monday, July 29, 2019

Five Flavors of Dumb by Antony John

Dumb is a band with three members: Tash on guitar, Will on bass and his brother Josh on vocals. They win the Battle of the Band at school and the prize was a set of recording sessions. When Piper publically points out their faults she soon finds herself the manager of Dumb. The problem is Piper is deaf. She invites her friend Ed to their band practice and it soon becomes apparent that the band needs Ed's drumming skills to fix them.

But that's not the only change made. Josh wants to add Kallie because he wants to go out with her and thinks that if he lets her in the band the popular girl will go out with him. He convinces Piper to agree with him by pointing out Kallie's hotness will get people interested in the band. The problem is Kallie can barely play the guitar. This pisses off Tash, whose normal setting is pissed off. Will, the one who is out of it most of the time, is also against her be allowed in the band. But Ed, the deciding vote, goes with Piper because he likes her so much.

Piper decides to get them on an easy listening radio station and to do this they need a song to be played there that would fit the format. So she writes a song appropriate with that format and Ed writes the music and the band records it but Kallie's sound is turned off due to what Tash told the engineer. Piper knows this and lets it happen.

The band is falling apart and they're playing the music they hate and Piper isn't acting as a good manager. Her younger brother Finn, a freshman, plays guitar and he agrees to work with Kallie and Tash on the songs. But there's only so much he can do. The reason she became their manager in the first place was to earn money to replace the money in her college fund that her grandparents set up for her that her parents raided in order to pay for cochlear implants for her baby sister. Piper resents her sister for the attention she is getting from her parents and for her ability to hear. Her dad never even learned to sign.

This book is a complex one that shows teens as they really are and shows the experiences of a deaf teen in particular. It also does a pretty good job of describing a recording session. Josh is a wonderfully manipulative guy who you so desire to get what he deserves, but he is needed in the band to sing as a lead singer so your hopes may never come to fruition. This is a great book that has great characters in it and I give it five out of five stars.

Quotes

“I don’t think anyone who’s motivated by fans of money will ever get it.” “Get what?” “Music. It’s not about those things. It’s about a feeling. It’s about expressing yourself. It’s about letting go.”

-Antony John (The Five Flavors of Dumb p 156)

Don’t worry about wanting to change; start worrying when you don’t feel like changing anymore. And in the meantime, enjoy every version of yourself you ever meet, because not everybody who discovers their true identity likes what they find.