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This YA novel by Jesse Andrews features self-proclaimed haters and music fans Wes and Corey, who go to jazz camp over the summer to get better at music. When they get put in the worst band in the entire place and are surrounded by men who think they're cool, they begin to feel trapped and like they don't belong at jazz camp. When they meet Ash, a cool older girl who hates jazz camp as much as they do, the three haters take Ash's car and go start a band (whose name periodically changes). On their road trip, they face police officers, family drama, crappy bars, and "Campig"- and develop a friendship that will last a lifetime.
This work provides magical singing examples of:
- Action Girl: Ash, who engages in car chases with police officers and is much cooler than Corey and Wes combined.
- A Good Name for a Rock Band: Wes, Corey and Ash come across a lot of phrases that they think would be great band names, such as Campig and The Magical Singing Dick Surplus.
- Did Not Get the Girl: Wes does not get either girl who he's interested in. He and Ash are barely in touch at the end, and his relationship with Shae Anne is more friendly than anything else.
- Double Standard Rape: Female on Male: Shae Anne has sex with Wes under questionable circumstances (Wes is very stoned while Shae Anne is completely sober, and Shae Anne forcibly performs multiple sexual actions). Wes is totally fine with it despite the inherent trauma, Shae Anne does not get in trouble, and besides a throwaway remark by Ash, no one even mentions the criminality of it.
- Driven to Suicide: Subverted- when Wes sees Corey up on the roof eating peanut butter, which he is supposedly allergic to, he thinks that his cruel words drove Corey to kill himself. However, Corey is not suicidal at all- he's just stoned and testing whether or not he's actually allergic.
- Idiot Ball: All three of the main characters have their moments- Ash when she wants to perform with Cookie, Corey when he totally blows the performance at Ellie's, and Wes when he's saying awkward things or randomly blurting out his desire to harm his own penis.
- My Beloved Smother: Corey's parents. They don't let Corey go anywhere on his own without interrogating him first, and they have a smothering explosion when they finally find Corey after the road trip.
- Sanity Ball: Corey, Wes, and Ash pass it between them a lot of the time.
- Token Trio: Wes is black, Corey is white, and Ash is female and white. However, instead of Corey (the white male) being the group's leader, it's Ash (the white female)
