Hello everyone! Today I have a very special post for you, a rant from Natalie, one of the main characters in
THIS IS THE PART WHERE YOU LAUGH by Peter Brown Hoffmeister!
You can see what Natalie rants about below, but first let's learn more about the book...
THIS IS THE PART WHERE YOU LAUGH
Author: Peter Brown Hoffmeister
Publisher: Knopf Books For Young Readers
Publication Date: May 17, 2016
Summary:
Rising sophomore Travis and his best friend, Creature, spend a summer in a Eugene, Oregon, trailer park dealing with cancer, basketball, first love, addiction, gang violence, and a reptilian infestation.
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Class: "Contemporary Issues," Taft High School
Mr. Thornburn: Okay, Natalie, for this impromptu speech assignment, you have to deliver three short rants, on three different topics, without using any swear words.
Natalie: No swear words at all?
Thornburn: Three short rants. No swear words at all. That's the assignment.
Natalie [walks up in front, turns and faces the class, takes a deep breath, and smiles]:
Okay. I've got this. First, on politics...Mr. Thornburn, you're always saying, "Don't complain, just vote," and I get what you're saying, it does make sense, sort of, but also it's sort of a fu...
...[smiles]...it's sort of a messed up thing to say to a group of sixteen-year-olds since we're not even allowed to vote for TWO MORE YEARS, and we've had eight straight years of the drone-strike president who seems to think that "collateral damage" is really an okay term for bombing a school on accident and killing children, or women, or just regular people in general, but even worse than what we have now – in the, uh, the White House – is that next, after this, we might have that yellow-faced, toupee-wearing, reality show, fake businessman clown piece of sh...
[smiles again]...
...that, uh, garbage-pile, sexist, racist, republican attempt at a presidential candidate which makes me wonder: How am I not supposed to complain or whine or blame or say anything about politics when I CAN'T EVEN VOTE YET, and therefore can't vote against what I would call a "pregnancy accident," and then the scariest thing of all is that Mr. Donald Trump might already be in office by the time I can vote?
Second, the Rich Kids Of Instagram. That's a thing. You might not know it, Mr. Thornburn, because you're pretty old, but it is. It's a thing. The richest kids in America are playing with daddy's and mommy's money right this second and posting about it on their phones. So, to those kids I say, do you really think it's okay to have a 100,000-dollar bar tab? Do you really think we want to see one more picture of your stupid yacht? Do you think I give even a single f...
...a single, um, care...do you think I even care where you went on your last vacation?
Greece...
Italy...
Cuba...
I don't give a crap about that.
Plus, most of you are ugly little hatchlings, wealthy-dressed reptiles, even though I know you heavily filter your photos, that you only select selfie-angles that shave thirty pounds off your rich, white, soft bodies, and that you probably even had plastic surgery before you started 8th grade, yet even surgery didn't improve you.
Third rant...let's see...one more...
Alright, there's this: My mom's always telling me to get off my phone, and that'd be a perfectly fine request, perfectly fine, no problem at all, I'd maybe even listen to her...
...if she wasn't a total hypocrite and wasn't on her phone or her tablet or her laptop watching Netflix until one in the morning, or if she wasn't on Facebook, or editing her own selfies, or scrolling through her own Instagram feed to see how many likes is her own personal record...
Yeah, maybe I'd listen to her if she wasn't watching reality shows, or TV dramas, or movies she ordered off of Amazon, or – let's be honest – maybe I'd listen to her if she had any real credibility at all and hadn't married my D-bag step-dad...
...or – I mean – my wonderful and glorious step-father who brightens my day with his perfect smile and his excellent personality before he goes off to his office and his cubicle each day to sell insurance, or to sell insurance futures, or to sell insurance shares, or whatever stupid thing he does all day long to make money and pay for his obvious hair plugs, his ridiculous pink silk shirts, his teeth-whitening strips, and his cologne that smells to me like a skunk got in a fight with a frat boy.
Or wait, is that too much information? I should probably protect his privacy, but I don't care about him at all.
[Natalie bows and walks back to her seat]
Peter Brown Hoffmeister is the author of the critically acclaimed novel Graphic The Valley, the memoir The End of Boys, the nonfiction text Let Them Be Eaten By Bears, and the forthcoming YA novels This Is The Part Where You Laugh and Too Shattered For Mending (Random House, Knopf).
A former troubled teen, Hoffmeister was expelled from three high schools, lived for a short while in a Greyhound bus station, was remanded to a recovery and parole program, and completed a wilderness experience for troubled teens. He now runs the Integrated Outdoor Program, serving teens of all backgrounds, taking them into wilderness areas to backpack, climb, spelunk, orienteer, and whitewater raft.
He lives with his wife and daughters in Eugene, Oregon.
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