Line #29 Literature/WhyWeTookTheCar


1	''Why We Took the Car'' is a 2010 youth book written by German author Wolfgang Herrndorf, and translated by Tim Mohr. The story centers around a boy named Maik Klingenberg who goes onto a journey with Andrej Tschichatschow a.k.a. Tschick - in a stolen car, without a driver's license or the age to have one.
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3	Maik is an outsider with an alcoholic mother and an unfaithful father. Andrej Tschichatschow is an immigrant from Russia who shows up drunk at school, has no friends and is only called Tschick. Only at the end of Summer break, out of the blue, Tschick talks to Maik and shows up at his home randomly, the second time with a stolen car. After two rather short drives and a visit at a birthday party they weren't invited to, Tschick proposes to go on vacations - it's Summer break after all, and Maik's parents aren't at home anyway. Their goal is Wallachia, where Tschick apparently has relatives, but without a map, mobiles or anything that helps them find their way, they end up driving through the most different places in Germany, meeting very diverse and rather weird people while trying to escape the police and forming a heartwarming friendship.
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6	!!Tropes present in ''Why We Took the Car'' include:
7	* AbusiveParents: Maik's father. He calls him stupid and even [[spoiler:hits him when he refuses to blame Tschick in the court.]]
8	* AlcoholicParent: Maik's mother. However, differently from the common use of this trope, she is displayed as a loving mother nonetheless, and quite aware of her problem.
9	* AllOfTheOtherReindeer: Nobody in his class likes or cares about Maik, and for a period of time, everyone calls him "Psycho".
10	* BigManOnCampus: André, who is also a {{Chick Magnet}}.
11	* BrainlessBeauty: Tschick accuses Tatjana of being one.
12	* ClusterFBomb: There's quite an amount of not so child-friendly swearing.
13	* ComicallyMissingThePoint: Tschick does this throughout almost the entire "Are you gay?" conversation.
14	* DrivesLikeCrazy: Most of the time Tschick drives normally, but when they leave Tatjana's party, he does a 180-turn.
15	--> '''Tschick:''' Doesn't always work.
16	* FriendlessBackground: The main characters, Maik and Tschick.
17	* FunnyBackgroundEvent: While the policemen talk to Maik at the police station, one policeman is trying to get the coffee machine to work with any possible way... except for plugging in the power cord.
18	* GlobalIgnorance: Maik at first refuses to believe that Wallachia even exists.
19	* InSeriesNickname: Tschick, which was also the original German title.
20	* ItMayHelpYouOnYourQuest: A man gives Maik and Tschick a bottle filled with a strange liquid, saying it will save their lives one day. [[SubvertedTrope They throw it out of the car once they're out of sight]].
21	* {{Jerkass}}: André.
22	* LadyDrunk: Maik's mom.
23	* LadySwearsALot: Isa swears in almost every sentence until she becomes more comfortable around Maik and Tschick.
24	* MistakenForGay: Happens twice: First, when Tschick believes Maik is gay at the beginning of the book, and later on, Isa mistakes them for gay because after eating brambleberries, Maik and Tschick look as if they've put on lipstick.
25	* MomentKiller: [[spoiler:Maik and Isa]] probably would've kissed if Tschick hadn't walked in on them.
26	* OnlyFriend: Maik and Tschick eventually become this for each other.
27	* SensitiveGuyAndManlyMan: With Maik as the sensitive guy and Tschick as the manly man, played down though.
28	* StraightGay: [[spoiler: Tschick.]]
29	* YouAreBetterThanYouThinkYouAre: When Maik breaks down and tells Tschick that he's actually boring, Tschick refuses to accept it and tells him that he's a great person, which Maik probably needed.

Context Literature / WhyWeTookTheCar