Review: The Five Stages of Andrew Brawley

The Five Stages of Andrew Brawley by Shaun David Hutchinson
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Going back a little further in Hutchinson's bibliography, The Five Stages of Andrew Brawley touches on a lot of the same themes as the next two books he's written since this one hit shelves, but on a smaller scale (it's only a shade under 300 pages as opposed to the 400-plus of both We Are the Ants and At the Edge of the Universe) and with less genre inflection, aside from the presence of the comics that the title character draws about his original antihero character, Patient F. But overall, this smaller, though no less personal, piece of emotional Hutchinson wonder reads like a mashup of Winger and Red Band Society, with Drew being an even more unique lead character than Henry or Ozzie, and the best characters being Trevor and Lexi, two adorable and awesome kids cursed to be patients in the hospital's pediatric ward. All these characters, and Rusty too, will make you laugh and cry, sometimes both at once. It wouldn't be Hutchinson if they didn't, no?

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