Narrated in the collective 'we,' the book takes on the task of crafting compelling characters out of 11 protagonists, and succeeds in spades. The side characters include various personified body parts ... The presence of these sort-of-sentient corporeal entities is but one colorful pane in a surprising and ultimately delightful narrative mosaic ... The narration is playful, making the emotional crescendos even more satisfying. Humor is an abundant buffer to rage, confusion, sadness and the tricky waters of love. Barry is a skilled storyteller and sentence artist who embraces irreverence where irreverence is due ... Sticks...only falters in some of its use of gender stereotypes ... However, the book treats all of its characters with a love so tender that even with these stereotypes, it’s impossible not to love them, too.
Barry, who has published four collections of poetry, definitely did the English homework ... she also is gloriously literate in the advertising lingo of the late eighties—hence losing one's virginity is 'taking the Nestea plunge' ... Barry is the queen of the register shift ... the pleasure of the book is all texture, at the expense of tension. It is too whimsical to maintain suspense, and the team members' personal histories are too long, despite winning interludes like a series of mock college admissions essays ... But Barry is careful not to let nostalgia paper over the real ways in which things were worse in the 1980s, particularly for queer people and people of color. At times, this point feels labored, particularly in the case of a trans character, but it is still welcome.
... deliciously irreverent ... a send-up of 1980s cultural ephemera with a Gen Z sensibility ... After the first preseason game in Durham, New Hampshire, Barry deftly pivots to a more total view of the team’s lives ... it’s the panoply of voices, each with their own concerns and neuroses, that are the greatest joy and propulsion for the narrative, even for those of us too young to share Barry’s encyclopedic knowledge of each trend and advertising slogan from the late ‘80s ... what keeps it fresh is Barry’s electric prose, through which she captures the esprit de corps of a high school varsity squad just as well as the 1980s zeitgeist drips like sticky residue from the potions, wine coolers, and spirits the team lifts from their parents’ cabinets ... The first-person plural voice allows for a kaleidoscopic effect, from the self-conscious stereotypical consumerism of a trip to the mall or the pounding refrains of Pat Benatar or Janet Jackson, to a prescient lens that provides perspective beyond the shallow desires of prom dress, first kiss, and the life lessons their—and many—modern-day sex education curriculums failed to instill ... Some readers might find the cumulative effect of those same rhetorical devices grating. The foreshadowing Barry allows herself through the omniscient first-person plural propels most of the plot development, rather than a more inherent driving force in the narrative ... But... it just might cast a spell on you, too.
Barry writes with a sustained, manic energy that propels these former losers—at least on the field—into a championship team ... The reason behind all this urgency for victory? Unclear. Or perhaps, what isn’t clear is why the reader should care if these girls get what they want ... In telling her story, Barry takes a not entirely successful risk with point of view. An omniscient narrator speaks for the entire team, so the book is delivered by a collective and confusing 'We.' There are so many girls, with so many clever names ... Because of Barry’s determination to provide the complete gamut of female teenage experience, the novel lacks an emotional center: a teenage girl to latch on to. To love or hate, or even to root for ... quirky, comic and painstakingly detailed ... It feels wrong to find fault with a book that is so filled with good intentions. But the sheer quantity of clever sentences and wry observations weighs the story down, until the championship game becomes not only anticlimactic, but also strangely beside the point.
... infused with period details, many of which are incorporated in funny and inventive ways ... although it is often laugh-out-loud funny, it also touches on pretty significant questions. What’s surprising and somewhat ironic given the plural narration is that We Ride Upon Sticks is largely about personal identity in terms of race, gender, sexuality and class privilege. Many of these issues might have gone largely unexamined or unacknowledged in the late 1980s vs. the early 2000s, which provides added richness both to Barry’s 1980s setting and its implicit commentary on all of these matters ... The final chapter brings the characters into adulthood and resolves many unanswered questions in a particularly satisfying closing scene.
Barry successfully captures the high jinks of a group of high school teens discovering themselves, learning about life, and finding out what it means to work together. Fans of coming-of-age stories will enjoy.
it is a perfectly tailored sport for a story about witchcraft – teenage girls (plus one boy) who really, really want to win while running around on a field wielding sticks at their opponents. When you throw in a potent setting, in this case the town of Danvers MA that was home to the original Salem accusers (also teenage girls), then you start to wonder why in the world no one has ever written before about a field hockey team that falls for magical temptation. Happily, Barry, who was raised in Danvers, is perfectly poised to dig deep into her hometown’s past while also reveling in all the opportunities presented by a complicated group of teenagers pursuing one goal while trying not to go too far in the process. Basically, We Ride Upon Sticks is the sort of glorious drama-filled fun that any teen could want to lose themselves in and a most excellent diversion for the waning days of the truly bitter and brutal year that is 2020 ... Barry manages to balance the stories of 11 different characters in unique and specific ways ... We Ride Upon Sticks is not technically a young-adult novel, but with a full cast of teen characters and high school setting it’s impossible not to see this as a hit for older teens.
Barry...is deeply witty, writing the narrator as a sort of omniscient group-think, the team speaking as one wry voice ... readers will cheer them on because what they’re really doing is learning to be fully and authentically themselves. Touching, hilarious, and deeply satisfying.
Barry handles a large cast of characters nimbly and affectionately, allowing each to take a turn or two in the spotlight. Readers with fond, or even not so fond, memories of the 1980s are bound to be entertained.
