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Object Lessons
Sticker
"A unique perspective on one of the most infamous cities in recent American history." - Publisher's Weekly
"A book that sticks with you long after you've read it." Volume 1 Brooklyn
"Hoke's writing is blunt and honest, and Sticker is a collection worth keeping." Southern Review of Books
"I will never forget this book." - T Kira Madden, author of Long Live the Tribe of Fatherless Girls
"Funny, nostalgic, and weird in the best possible way." - Jocelyn Nicole Johnson, author of My Monticello
Featured in Electric Lit's “The Most Anticipated LGBTQ+ Books of 2022”
Object Lessons is a series of short, beautifully designed books about the hidden lives of ordinary things.
Stickers adorn our first memories, dot our notebooks and our walls, are stuck annoyingly on fruit, and accompany us into adulthood to announce our beliefs from car bumpers. They hold surprising power in their ability to define and provoke, and hold a strange steadfast presence in our age of fading physical media. Henry Hoke employs a constellation of stickers to explore queer boyhood, parental disability, and ancestral violence.
A memoir in 20 stickers, Sticker is set against the backdrop of the encroaching neo-fascist presence in Hoke's hometown of Charlottesville, Virginia, which results in the fatal terrorist attack of August 12th and its national aftermath.
Object Lessons is published in partnership with an essay series in The Atlantic.
"A book that sticks with you long after you've read it." Volume 1 Brooklyn
"Hoke's writing is blunt and honest, and Sticker is a collection worth keeping." Southern Review of Books
"I will never forget this book." - T Kira Madden, author of Long Live the Tribe of Fatherless Girls
"Funny, nostalgic, and weird in the best possible way." - Jocelyn Nicole Johnson, author of My Monticello
Featured in Electric Lit's “The Most Anticipated LGBTQ+ Books of 2022”
Object Lessons is a series of short, beautifully designed books about the hidden lives of ordinary things.
Stickers adorn our first memories, dot our notebooks and our walls, are stuck annoyingly on fruit, and accompany us into adulthood to announce our beliefs from car bumpers. They hold surprising power in their ability to define and provoke, and hold a strange steadfast presence in our age of fading physical media. Henry Hoke employs a constellation of stickers to explore queer boyhood, parental disability, and ancestral violence.
A memoir in 20 stickers, Sticker is set against the backdrop of the encroaching neo-fascist presence in Hoke's hometown of Charlottesville, Virginia, which results in the fatal terrorist attack of August 12th and its national aftermath.
Object Lessons is published in partnership with an essay series in The Atlantic.
128 pages, Kindle Edition
Published January 13, 2022
8 people are currently reading
854 people want to read
About the author
Henry Hoke
6 books342 followersHenry Hoke is an editor at The Offing and the author of five books, most recently the novel Open Throat (MCDxFSG / Picador), and the memoir Sticker (Bloomsbury).
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 67 reviews
September 13, 2021
One of my favourite pieces of writing’s Joe Brainard’s classic I Remember. An autobiography constructed from sentences all starting with “I remember.” It’s deceptively simple yet surprisingly effective and evocative. Whenever I read it, it sets off a rush of memories. Writer and lecturer, Henry Hoke’s brief, unorthodox memoir in twenty stickers achieves something very similar. Stickers show up in Hoke’s earliest recollections: gold stars wielded by teachers: glowing constellations scattered across his bedroom ceiling; envying the girl in his class her sparkly, pink, unicorn stickers, not safe for a boy to be seen with; the stickers on ‘Fred’ his mother’s wheelchair; the CDs he snuck into school marked with alluring but risky parental advisory labels. Stickers are small, taken-for-granted objects yet rich in associations; Hoke’s adept at conjuring these to construct a pathway through his experiences of growing up queer, in Charlottesville - a place that’s come to symbolise the fractured, social and cultural landscape of contemporary America.
Like any memoir this has its inevitable nostalgic moments but it’s never misty-eyed or sentimental. It’s evident Hoke’s keenly aware of the complex networks of family, community and society that shape an individual, the myriad ways his personal history and the history of Charlottesville frequently intersect and sometimes collide. So, a bumper sticker on a truck’s a reminder of the now-infamous 2017 alt-right rallies, Charlottesville’s traumatic legacy of slavery and segregation, and the time Hoke barely managed to escape injury during an anti-racism protest. I really appreciated Hoke’s approach here, he writes well, adept at mingling lyrical prose or amusing anecdotes with reasoned but passionate political insights. Hoke also made me realise how frequently stickers feature in my own past, from the tangerine stickers I pasted all over my school pencil-case, smelling of holidays and snow to the intimidating, neo-Nazi ones you had to peel off with a coin in case there were razor blades hidden behind. Sticker is the latest entry in Bloomsbury Academic’s well-regarded Object Lessons series: compact, pleasingly produced, each one features an author selecting an object and discussing its significance in whatever way works for them.
Thanks to Netgalley and Bloomsbury Academic for the arc.
Like any memoir this has its inevitable nostalgic moments but it’s never misty-eyed or sentimental. It’s evident Hoke’s keenly aware of the complex networks of family, community and society that shape an individual, the myriad ways his personal history and the history of Charlottesville frequently intersect and sometimes collide. So, a bumper sticker on a truck’s a reminder of the now-infamous 2017 alt-right rallies, Charlottesville’s traumatic legacy of slavery and segregation, and the time Hoke barely managed to escape injury during an anti-racism protest. I really appreciated Hoke’s approach here, he writes well, adept at mingling lyrical prose or amusing anecdotes with reasoned but passionate political insights. Hoke also made me realise how frequently stickers feature in my own past, from the tangerine stickers I pasted all over my school pencil-case, smelling of holidays and snow to the intimidating, neo-Nazi ones you had to peel off with a coin in case there were razor blades hidden behind. Sticker is the latest entry in Bloomsbury Academic’s well-regarded Object Lessons series: compact, pleasingly produced, each one features an author selecting an object and discussing its significance in whatever way works for them.
Thanks to Netgalley and Bloomsbury Academic for the arc.
February 1, 2022
Henry Hoke writes a memoir through 20 stickers that is part nostalgia - for video stores, for summer camp - but also a reckoning. As a white boy growing up in Charlottesville, that identity came into a clearer focus in recent years and the negative attention his city received. I also felt like he was skirting some discussion of queer identity but maybe he shared what he wanted to share. He also included topics like having a parent with a disability (still his primary parent) and going through parents' divorce as a kid.
Were you a sticker person as a child? I'm guilty. I remember my giant bright pink sticker book of elementary school years...probably why I'm drawn as an adult to paper planners. But the stickers profiled here are not all that variety, some are the type that warn a child about poison, brag about an honor roll student, or warn parents of explicit content. So now you're getting a sense of the range of these essays.
I had a copy from the publisher through NetGalley; it came out 22 January 2022. I'd say despite the positioning of this essay collection inside of the academic side of Bloomsbury, it never feels overly scholarly and is a pleasure to read.
Were you a sticker person as a child? I'm guilty. I remember my giant bright pink sticker book of elementary school years...probably why I'm drawn as an adult to paper planners. But the stickers profiled here are not all that variety, some are the type that warn a child about poison, brag about an honor roll student, or warn parents of explicit content. So now you're getting a sense of the range of these essays.
I had a copy from the publisher through NetGalley; it came out 22 January 2022. I'd say despite the positioning of this essay collection inside of the academic side of Bloomsbury, it never feels overly scholarly and is a pleasure to read.
January 11, 2022
A sometimes compelling and intriguing collection of short, snappy vignettes on the stickers that Hoke remembers most clearly from throughout his lifetime and exactly what they were used for or what they actually meant to him. If you perhaps need a break from ingesting complex nonfiction books on important subjects then this is a great way to refresh and give your mind a break while still remaining in the nonfiction genre. For those with little time to dedicate to reading this could be a decent choice as the tales span only a few pages in length and are ideal for dipping in and out of.
It's a lighter read more for entertainment purposes than educative, but it has been a welcome break. It features stories of Mr Yuk, the ghastly face often stuck onto bottles of toxic household chemicals with the aim of keeping children from drinking them; Unicorn explains the first time Hoke was subjected to the slur "gay" by a so-called friend in second grade after he couldn't hide his desire to own one of the vibrant, glitter-drenched unicorn stickers that the girls in the class had been sharing around the classroom.
That said, I was unaware that this was more about stickers in the context of the author’s life and not the origins of certain stickers in general, and I would have preferred it to have actually been about just stickers themselves as I am not interested in the life story of a nobody. Regardless, some of the snippets were interesting, but Hoke’s memoirs dominated the narrative far too much for my liking. Object Lessons seems quite a misleading name for the series when it's really a set of autobiographies of people you have never heard of sprinkled with some stories about the particular object in question.
It's a lighter read more for entertainment purposes than educative, but it has been a welcome break. It features stories of Mr Yuk, the ghastly face often stuck onto bottles of toxic household chemicals with the aim of keeping children from drinking them; Unicorn explains the first time Hoke was subjected to the slur "gay" by a so-called friend in second grade after he couldn't hide his desire to own one of the vibrant, glitter-drenched unicorn stickers that the girls in the class had been sharing around the classroom.
That said, I was unaware that this was more about stickers in the context of the author’s life and not the origins of certain stickers in general, and I would have preferred it to have actually been about just stickers themselves as I am not interested in the life story of a nobody. Regardless, some of the snippets were interesting, but Hoke’s memoirs dominated the narrative far too much for my liking. Object Lessons seems quite a misleading name for the series when it's really a set of autobiographies of people you have never heard of sprinkled with some stories about the particular object in question.
August 24, 2024
This was profoundly overwritten and not even about stickers.
Hoke uses stickers as a way to frame himself and his life, which, being an alienated urban white kid benefitting from gifted and talented in the ‘80s and ‘90s, I’m right there with you buddy, but just because I remember how scandalous Marilyn Manson sort of was, doesn’t mean Hoke has the literary craft or any insight into the PMRC to write a good yarn about Parental Advisory stickers and how some kids were allowed to have those cd’s and some kids weren’t.
Hoke calls Marilyn Manson “The Antichrist” and Dave Matthews “Dave.” My dude. Marilyn Manson isn’t going to sue you for calling him a rapist and Dave Matthews isn’t going to sue you for not being that into him.
Hoke has a through-line where he says, “If Thomas Jefferson was a scratch and sniff, he would smell like slavery and my hometown,” or something similar. It’s just not on. Scratch and sniff stickers are fucking awesome. Why imagine scratch and sniffs that suck and also aren’t stickers? My dude! Anarchy stickers would smell like clove cigarettes; beach stickers would smell like the beach, which is piña colada; Nazi stickers would probably be excessively minty or something else cheap and bad; we agree that banana stickers would smell like banana, and this book is just using stickers as a springboard for self-indulgent wanking. I wanted the history of stickers. I love stickers. This should be a sticker book instead of bad memoir. This is the worst Object Lessons by a lot.
Hoke’s mom is in a wheelchair. He calls it Fred and says it watches her go to the bathroom. Lots of inanimate objects watch us go to the bathroom. It’s only weird if you name them.
Hoke uses stickers as a way to frame himself and his life, which, being an alienated urban white kid benefitting from gifted and talented in the ‘80s and ‘90s, I’m right there with you buddy, but just because I remember how scandalous Marilyn Manson sort of was, doesn’t mean Hoke has the literary craft or any insight into the PMRC to write a good yarn about Parental Advisory stickers and how some kids were allowed to have those cd’s and some kids weren’t.
Hoke calls Marilyn Manson “The Antichrist” and Dave Matthews “Dave.” My dude. Marilyn Manson isn’t going to sue you for calling him a rapist and Dave Matthews isn’t going to sue you for not being that into him.
Hoke has a through-line where he says, “If Thomas Jefferson was a scratch and sniff, he would smell like slavery and my hometown,” or something similar. It’s just not on. Scratch and sniff stickers are fucking awesome. Why imagine scratch and sniffs that suck and also aren’t stickers? My dude! Anarchy stickers would smell like clove cigarettes; beach stickers would smell like the beach, which is piña colada; Nazi stickers would probably be excessively minty or something else cheap and bad; we agree that banana stickers would smell like banana, and this book is just using stickers as a springboard for self-indulgent wanking. I wanted the history of stickers. I love stickers. This should be a sticker book instead of bad memoir. This is the worst Object Lessons by a lot.
Hoke’s mom is in a wheelchair. He calls it Fred and says it watches her go to the bathroom. Lots of inanimate objects watch us go to the bathroom. It’s only weird if you name them.
November 20, 2021
I've read and reviewed quite a few Object Lessons books by now, and my usual refrain is the ones that take a more individual path, a personal thesis or use the object to jump off and talk about greater trends in society have been my favourite. That said, there is a point when it drifts into memoir or autobiography where they don't work so well. Telling the story of stickers through a personal interaction of lots of kinds of stickers would normally work for me. Telling the story of someone life through their interaction with stickers is a lot less interesting, and not really what I think the books should be. But just in case you weren't sure about it, Henry Hoke - in his introduction (which as is typical for this book is actually a third of the way through) - makes his position of the history of stickers quite clear: "If you really care about the history of adhesive labels, just go on the internet." This I feel breaks a minor compact with the reader who has bought an Object Lessons book called Sticker. (I you do google history of adhesive label you get a solid but not very deep Wikipedia page, and a few in-house histories which appear to strongly overestimate the importance of Avery in their development).
I suppose none of this would really matter if I had engaged with the memoir around it, but unfortunately that drifted into what felt like a not exceptionally interesting bit of self-memorialising. There are interesting points drawn out, being from Charlottesville, Virginia and its recent history of racist acts (and longer history) looms large. There's some solid coming of age stuff, but it all felt a little sufficed with the sense of "the writer who made it out", and by the way here are some stickers I remember along the way.
It may also be that I reacted this way as I have a personal connection with the topic, in as much as I have a mild phobia of stickers, and find them physically and intellectually unpleasant. So I was interested if anything like that would come up, and the book gets by without even mentioning sticky residues and dramaged book and album covers (I will give him a pass on not knowing quite how revolting a slowly rotting half picked off sticker of Roger Moore dressed as a clown in Octopussy could be on a bathroom mirror). Still like Object Lessons, and accept that if I want them to be personal and experimental that there will be ones I don't like. And sadly this was the one.
I suppose none of this would really matter if I had engaged with the memoir around it, but unfortunately that drifted into what felt like a not exceptionally interesting bit of self-memorialising. There are interesting points drawn out, being from Charlottesville, Virginia and its recent history of racist acts (and longer history) looms large. There's some solid coming of age stuff, but it all felt a little sufficed with the sense of "the writer who made it out", and by the way here are some stickers I remember along the way.
It may also be that I reacted this way as I have a personal connection with the topic, in as much as I have a mild phobia of stickers, and find them physically and intellectually unpleasant. So I was interested if anything like that would come up, and the book gets by without even mentioning sticky residues and dramaged book and album covers (I will give him a pass on not knowing quite how revolting a slowly rotting half picked off sticker of Roger Moore dressed as a clown in Octopussy could be on a bathroom mirror). Still like Object Lessons, and accept that if I want them to be personal and experimental that there will be ones I don't like. And sadly this was the one.
April 8, 2024
Bloomsbury says its Object Lessons series is “about the hidden lives of ordinary things. Each book starts from a specific inspiration: an historical event, a literary passage, a personal narrative, a technological innovation—and from that starting point explores the object of the title.”
That’s a misleading description for Sticker, because Henry Hoke has flipped the order here, using the “specific inspiration” of stickers to explore his “personal narrative.” Hoke doesn’t see much of interest in the stickers themselves: “If you really care about the history of adhesive labels, just go on the internet. Stickers are a means to an end.”
If you can get past some show-off writing and the topical bait and switch (and the author’s impatient sneer at folks who actually would like to read about stickers, thank you) you’ll find a readable, touching memoir of his childhood in Charlottesville and the racial history, reckoning, and symbolism of the town.
That’s a misleading description for Sticker, because Henry Hoke has flipped the order here, using the “specific inspiration” of stickers to explore his “personal narrative.” Hoke doesn’t see much of interest in the stickers themselves: “If you really care about the history of adhesive labels, just go on the internet. Stickers are a means to an end.”
If you can get past some show-off writing and the topical bait and switch (and the author’s impatient sneer at folks who actually would like to read about stickers, thank you) you’ll find a readable, touching memoir of his childhood in Charlottesville and the racial history, reckoning, and symbolism of the town.
August 21, 2021
A memoir as told by stickers… interesting idea, but this was honestly pretty boring/disjointed. I didn’t get a great sense of Hoke, nor was I impressed by the imagery or writing. I’m pretty sure I’ll remember almost none of this a month from now.
I voluntarily obtained a digital version of this book free from Netgalley and Bloomsbury Academic in exchange for an honest review.
I voluntarily obtained a digital version of this book free from Netgalley and Bloomsbury Academic in exchange for an honest review.
January 14, 2024
I moved to Charlottesville in 2018, a full year after the event we now call CHARLOTTESVILLE. I loved these essays about a young man growing up here and grappling with his own life and his community’s history.
August 1, 2021
“Stickers can be excuses. You’re experiencing my second chance. A memoir in 20 stickers, randomly arranged and full of contradictions. An attempt to make my identity a little more tangible.” -From Stickers
5 stars
This unique and brief memoir is filled with thoughtful prose that will stick with you. It was truly impressive how he used such an unassuming object to piece together parts of the authors life, examining many diverse issues along the way. From the repetition of describing what each sticker would smell like, to injecting the storyline with historical facts; I adored every moment except for the very end. It seemed to me to just stop abruptly, without really wrapping anything up. Or maybe I just didn’t want this book to end.
Thank you to the publisher, author, and NetGalley for an advanced copy in exchange for an honest review.
5 stars
This unique and brief memoir is filled with thoughtful prose that will stick with you. It was truly impressive how he used such an unassuming object to piece together parts of the authors life, examining many diverse issues along the way. From the repetition of describing what each sticker would smell like, to injecting the storyline with historical facts; I adored every moment except for the very end. It seemed to me to just stop abruptly, without really wrapping anything up. Or maybe I just didn’t want this book to end.
Thank you to the publisher, author, and NetGalley for an advanced copy in exchange for an honest review.
March 12, 2022
Writing a memoir (of sorts) using stickers is a unique way to do it, to say the least. I actually remembered some of the stickers mentioned and found myself remembering other stickers I had coveted and collected in my early years. I enjoyed all of the origin facts surrounding the different stickers, as well.
This unbiased review is based on a complimentary copy provided by the publisher.
This unbiased review is based on a complimentary copy provided by the publisher.
March 12, 2022
Sticker is a "memoir in 20 stickers": twenty short essays that range in timespan and topic from the Mr. Yuk stickers of Henry Hoke's early childhood (adorning bottles of cleaning supplies under the sink) to a "Hilton Head" HH bumper sticker that also makes Hoke think of his own initials, and of "Heil Hitler", and of Heather Heyer, who was killed while peacefully protesting the white supremacist Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, where Hoke also grew up. Several of the pieces involve a consideration of/reckoning with the racism of the South (and of America more generally): Hoke, who is white, talks about the very different architecture of one school built in Charlottesville in the 1920s for Black students and another built, at the same time, for white students; he talks about his own great-great-grandfather in Alabama who "drafted election laws" that were "designed specifically to disenfranchise newly eligible Black voters"; he talks about Jefferson and Monticello and UVA and the buildings that were constructed and the grounds that were cleared by enslaved people. Other pieces are more directly about Hoke's experiences and memories, whether that's about growing up with a mom who uses a wheelchair, or having "I AM GAY" painted on his car with shoe polish when he was a teenager, or kissing a boy at summer camp. Sometimes the stickers are central to the pieces; other times they're more tangential. Hoke and I are close in age, and I liked reading Hoke's memories of cultural reference points that resonate with me, too: the "Mr. Men" books, Lisa Frank stickers, Airheads candy and "the great white shark in the aquatic fruit snacks", the song "Both Hands" by Ani DiFranco.
March 5, 2022
I am constantly impressed by what Henry Hoke can do in such compact spaces. These 20 little essays that adhere to a construct wherein a memorable sticker situation gets mentioned and then he riffs on them in digressions that will pretty much just pull you completely in. Riffs is probably not the right word because although the digressions seem natural, and organic, they are sharp. Pointed little memories and explorations into home, family, place, childhood, race, academia, and the public square. It is a book filled with personal access to the writer. Very expository. But still, somehow reserved. Stately. Charming. And at times laugh out loud funny.
Looking forward to reading more from Hoke, and also planning to check out more of this object lesson series.
Looking forward to reading more from Hoke, and also planning to check out more of this object lesson series.
December 4, 2025
Henry Hoke’s “open throat” is one of my favorite books of recent memory so I picked this up as soon as I saw his name. This is memoir organized through the lens of stickers. It ranges through themes including accidents and their legacy, the history of Charlottesville and wrestling with a legacy of white supremacy, the question of ambition, the discovery of sexuality, and dealing with family. Throughout is Hoke’s distinctive voice, which is matter of fact while feeling wildly original. I don’t love this as much as I did his fiction but I definitely do love his writing style. Also, this is part of series of short works exploring everyday objects. Based on this example, I would be curious to read more of these.
February 28, 2025
This was such a compelling memoir, I was hooked. I don’t have any ties to the South, so I was fascinated to read about Hoke’s childhood in Charlottesville. I appreciated his story-telling, mixing the innocence of childhood & stickers with the hard truths of his hometowns’ complex & racist history. His reflections on the 2017 Unite the Right rally were emotional and personal. I would highly recommend this short read.
February 9, 2025
I was (and still am) a sticker girl, so of course I had to pick up this brief and creative memoir from Henry Hoke (author of one of my favorite reads of 2024, Open Throat). It was clever, nostalgic, and details what it was like to grow up in Charlottesville, VA.
August 7, 2021
Thank you to Henry Hoke and Bloomsbury Academic for an advance copy in return for an honest review.
Sticker is part of the Object Lessons collections from Bloomsbury Academic, a series of short books teaching about the hidden lives of ordinary objects.
Like many, I have vivid memories of growing up that include stickers - the ones annoyingly stuck to the fruit in my lunchbox, the ones over my school books, the ones that come with sweets, the ones I wasn't meant to stick to the wall but did anyway - and they still appear in my adult life. They somehow remain a constant and despite their age hold an important part in popular physical media.
In stickers, Hoke creates a memoir using twenty different stickers to mark different phases in his life from infancy to adulthood - exploring growing up in a disabled family, racial segregation, queer childhood and living in a heavily facist and neo-nazi environment that fell victim to fatal terrorist attacks, extreme racism and homophobia - Charlottesville, USA. Rather than just a matter-of-fact history of his hometown, this explores deeply personal history and the emotions contained within, branching out into the wider social issues he's either experienced or observed coming from a place of being both priviledged and a minority at once.
At the same time, this collection also had sections that simply filled me with childhood nostalgia - the iconic gold star to the warning stickers on a bottle of bleach - invoking emotions I haven't thought of in over a decade.
In just under 150 pages, this was a very easy read despite some of it's more sensitive content. Hoke managed to curate a style that felt more like a personal, informal conversation with the reader that made the pages turn far too quickly and still remain fully engaging.
Sticker is part of the Object Lessons collections from Bloomsbury Academic, a series of short books teaching about the hidden lives of ordinary objects.
Like many, I have vivid memories of growing up that include stickers - the ones annoyingly stuck to the fruit in my lunchbox, the ones over my school books, the ones that come with sweets, the ones I wasn't meant to stick to the wall but did anyway - and they still appear in my adult life. They somehow remain a constant and despite their age hold an important part in popular physical media.
In stickers, Hoke creates a memoir using twenty different stickers to mark different phases in his life from infancy to adulthood - exploring growing up in a disabled family, racial segregation, queer childhood and living in a heavily facist and neo-nazi environment that fell victim to fatal terrorist attacks, extreme racism and homophobia - Charlottesville, USA. Rather than just a matter-of-fact history of his hometown, this explores deeply personal history and the emotions contained within, branching out into the wider social issues he's either experienced or observed coming from a place of being both priviledged and a minority at once.
At the same time, this collection also had sections that simply filled me with childhood nostalgia - the iconic gold star to the warning stickers on a bottle of bleach - invoking emotions I haven't thought of in over a decade.
In just under 150 pages, this was a very easy read despite some of it's more sensitive content. Hoke managed to curate a style that felt more like a personal, informal conversation with the reader that made the pages turn far too quickly and still remain fully engaging.
July 30, 2021
Sticker is a a memoir told in 20 stickers, as Henry Hoke explores growing up in and being from Charlottesville, having a disabled parent, and sexuality all through the lens of particular stickers. From stickers never had to those more ubiquitous, each chapter using the sticker as a starting point, as Hoke explores childhood, violence, and legacy.
This is the first book from the Object Lessons series that I've read, and it was not what I might've expected, not a history or philosophical look at an object, but using the object in question to explore personal history and emotion. In particular, the book explores being from a place known for white supremacist violence, whose name became a byword for a fascist terrorist attack. Seeing as stickers are often used by neo-fascists to spread hate, this adds a layer of complexity to the idea of the object covered in the book: stickers are not just a site of childhood joy and sometimes pain, but also part of something larger. This is also true of other elements of the book, like not being able to have a sticker for giving blood if you're a man who has sex with men, and it's clever how Hoke manages to explore so many emotions and experiences organised around stickers.
The book's cover, with the unicorn and rainbow stickers, might not make it clear how much this book engages with what I don't want to call 'the darker side of stickers', but the elements of stickers that go beyond something cute to adorn notebooks with or give to a child. The concept of the book makes me wonder what objects you could view your life through and where objects have a lot more complexity than you might first think (so maybe I need to read more of the series). If you like reading short memoirs with overarching themes or structural conceits, Sticker is a book to give a go, particularly if you're interested in reading about experiences of being a white queer person in Charlottesville and consider how people are privileged or see things in certain ways.
This is the first book from the Object Lessons series that I've read, and it was not what I might've expected, not a history or philosophical look at an object, but using the object in question to explore personal history and emotion. In particular, the book explores being from a place known for white supremacist violence, whose name became a byword for a fascist terrorist attack. Seeing as stickers are often used by neo-fascists to spread hate, this adds a layer of complexity to the idea of the object covered in the book: stickers are not just a site of childhood joy and sometimes pain, but also part of something larger. This is also true of other elements of the book, like not being able to have a sticker for giving blood if you're a man who has sex with men, and it's clever how Hoke manages to explore so many emotions and experiences organised around stickers.
The book's cover, with the unicorn and rainbow stickers, might not make it clear how much this book engages with what I don't want to call 'the darker side of stickers', but the elements of stickers that go beyond something cute to adorn notebooks with or give to a child. The concept of the book makes me wonder what objects you could view your life through and where objects have a lot more complexity than you might first think (so maybe I need to read more of the series). If you like reading short memoirs with overarching themes or structural conceits, Sticker is a book to give a go, particularly if you're interested in reading about experiences of being a white queer person in Charlottesville and consider how people are privileged or see things in certain ways.
August 14, 2021
The key question here is whether this entrant to this most frustrating of series is about its subject, or about its author. (There's also the issue of whether it contains an unhealthy amount of what a British comic you wouldn't like calls "mindless hysterical screeching wokery", because some volumes under this umbrella easily surpass that.) Well, in a way it manages to be both – it takes until page 40 to wake up to the fact that it's "a memoir in 20 stickers, randomly arranged and full of contradictions" it goes on to say. Before then we've seen something concerning the school gold stars that I shared with the author, when lucky, and what was thought of as gender-inappropriate sparkly unicorns and glowing stars for the bedroom ceiling that I certainly didn't. Oh and we had a strong smirk of recognition at the reinforcer – those Polo sweet-sized stickers that came in boxes of 10,000 and just meant your ring binders could hold fewer sheets of paper, but at least none would fall out.
Oh, and we're also told that if we wanted to learn about stickers, there's the Internet. Gee, thanks.
This isn't horrendously mis-sold to us, however, for there certainly are stickers here. Mass-produced ones advertising 'anarchy', because nothing speaks of anarchy and individuality more than a plasticated piece of paper identical to a trillion others. Stickers are price-gunned on to VHSs and DVDs with the author working his dream job in a video rental shop. But the book doesn't discuss them per se, rather it looks at how they acted as touch-points when he looks back on his life thus far. Finally, the book is about racist America, because of course the Marxist academia can talk of so little else. No bandaids would cover those cracks, either. But a few plasters shoring up the gulf between what the book is supposed to be about and what it actually was concerned with would certainly help.
Oh, and we're also told that if we wanted to learn about stickers, there's the Internet. Gee, thanks.
This isn't horrendously mis-sold to us, however, for there certainly are stickers here. Mass-produced ones advertising 'anarchy', because nothing speaks of anarchy and individuality more than a plasticated piece of paper identical to a trillion others. Stickers are price-gunned on to VHSs and DVDs with the author working his dream job in a video rental shop. But the book doesn't discuss them per se, rather it looks at how they acted as touch-points when he looks back on his life thus far. Finally, the book is about racist America, because of course the Marxist academia can talk of so little else. No bandaids would cover those cracks, either. But a few plasters shoring up the gulf between what the book is supposed to be about and what it actually was concerned with would certainly help.
September 15, 2025
3.75 Stars
What an INTERESTING take on a memoir. To break it into little essays/short stories all with a common theme of stickers was super intriguing. I found myself looking at each story and waiting to see how he tied each sticker in in a really cool way. I was almost never disappointed. Not all the stories were my favorite, but they all were really interesting with how he tied the object into it. Some of them were stickers I didn’t even think of as stickers, such as reinforcers.
There was some really poetic and beautiful phrasing in this book. I love Henry Hoke’s writing style. I think he’s still an author to watch in my opinion. I really enjoyed open throat, and I’m glad I picked this up. I feel like I learned a lot about him, but also there’s still so many questions. It wasn’t a straightforward memoir by any means. It was more a collection of thoughts that he’s had about his home, his life, his childhood and more.
I’ve written a few notes on each specific story, if you haven’t read it a lot of them probably won’t make much sense. But I’m going to include them here because I wrote them, so why not!
TL;DR for them though, this book was a really interesting read!
Mr Yuk:
“All the man of the house could do was register repulsion” hit deep.
The idea of having a crush on the image of something that could kill you? That’s just SCREAMING metaphors Henry!!! But also really love the universal experience of having a crush on random images and fictional characters from our childhoods.
Unicorn:
I’m just sad for little Henry!! But at the same time grateful that blonde boy showed his true colours before he got too deep into being a co-bully. The ponytail was beyond bad! But the idea of kicking someone into an electric fence is psychotic behaviour. Yeesh.
Wahoowa:
What did Charlottesville do to get such a negative reputation? 😂 (based on the next one, racism!)
Gold star:
As a sick writer, how can he say gold stars ruined his education when they encouraged him to keep being sick! That being said, I really enjoyed Hoke took a race history and tied it back to the theme that we aren’t taught any of this, and we are rewarded for the little we know. The ending of sitting and waiting to actually learn something was really powerful!
Constellation:
While the sticker metaphor for growing up was really visceral and relatable (the glow in the dark stars were very much a symbol for childhood) this one took off like crazy when he started listing what his brother was better at. Holy man I just learned so much about his brother and Henry in a page and a half of a list. That was intense! Loved it.
Chiquita:
The idea of scab’s being natures sticker to cover up something gory really stuck with me. Hoke took an essay that was essentially about his childhood bullies and made really beautiful observations about the experience of growing up and slowly learning all the parts of his queerness
Reinforcer:
I honestly forgot reinforcements existed, but what a good sticker to pick as a metaphor for moments in his life. I really enjoyed the last page where hoke talked about the novel as a whole, and how these 20 random “stickers” get us a closer picture of who he is.
Proud Parent:
The idea of your parent’s wheelchair being a member of the family is a really great image. “Fred shows me the inaccessibility of the world” hit me really hard.
Parental Advisory Explicit Content:
Parental advisory is a GOOD sticker to focus a coming of age essay on. Hoke definitely tricked me with the hook of “I became an orphan on a snow day” and a story that I thought would break my heart, warmed it instead. I fell in love with his mom a little bit in this one for being so cool.
Rotunda:
“If the rotunda was a scratch and sniff, it would reek.” Fuuuuck this one was impactful as shit. The idea of Thomas Jefferson’s legacy being a sticker over all of his horrifying crimes is so accurate. And then the way joke ties it in to himself playing Jefferson and stickering over himself and playing this overly masculine monster? Really interesting.
Anarchy:
It’s not surprising to me that the essay called Anarchy, about his life as a punk kid took a very unexpected turn. I was a bit confused reading this one as to how he got from point a to b, thinking that maybe it would all tie together. But it doesn’t. It was just a moment in his life, and a character who eerily was impactful on the morning of his death. Very sad and kinda spooky.
Blueberry:
The idea that our memories aren’t real, they’re just fragments of what we have remembered last is always something that fascinates me. Using a scratch and sniff sticker to remind us that no matter what, our reminders cant contain all senses (such as smell) was really wild.
Death to the Pixies:
Reclaiming shame from “you are gay” graffiti on his car by putting a bumper sticker with a dick on it on his new car? Amazing. I also loved the section where he described all the houses he drove by and the people in them in a quick sentence. It gave a real sense of his home and where he grew up, and how it’s changed today.
Pink Circle:
The idea of still wanting to work in a video store today? I get it Henry. I get it. Honestly the fact that Henry Hoke is a film guy makes me like him even more. I felt SO MUCH nostalgia in this one.
Heart:
This one reminds me of my family, the way everyone slowly fell into disability. It’s wild the resilience we build after the initial accident. Horrible that we get used to it.
Fire Dancer:
“Whenever I tell this story, I’m lying. It actually happened to dad. It’s ok if that makes you doubt the veracity of my memoir.” Why is relating our town to the one famous person from it such a universal experience? He didn’t want to talk about Dave Matthews, and yet, of course he did!
Be nice to me I gave blood today:
The guilt of not giving blood even though it’s not a choice and not being deserving of the sticker??? Gah. I’m upset!!
Are you triggered:
“Afraid to peel stickers for the fear of the residue you’ll leave behind.” What a great metaphor for the removal of racist statues. You can’t have a book about queerness without addressing the fascist president and the results of that!
Hail Satan:
Feeling need to cover up his progressive views and his comedic sticker in the workplace because fascism is on the rise is pissing me off. Mostly because it doesn’t surprise me at all.
HH:
The connection of his initials to the white surpremisist sticker that means “Heil Hitler” is bleak as hell. Interesting that he also mentions Heather Heyer with the initials, who was a white person killed by white supremisists for protesting them. I also find it really interesting that he ends the book with this one. The dark and bleak world of Charlottesville and its racism, and then the simple “I’m from there.”
What an INTERESTING take on a memoir. To break it into little essays/short stories all with a common theme of stickers was super intriguing. I found myself looking at each story and waiting to see how he tied each sticker in in a really cool way. I was almost never disappointed. Not all the stories were my favorite, but they all were really interesting with how he tied the object into it. Some of them were stickers I didn’t even think of as stickers, such as reinforcers.
There was some really poetic and beautiful phrasing in this book. I love Henry Hoke’s writing style. I think he’s still an author to watch in my opinion. I really enjoyed open throat, and I’m glad I picked this up. I feel like I learned a lot about him, but also there’s still so many questions. It wasn’t a straightforward memoir by any means. It was more a collection of thoughts that he’s had about his home, his life, his childhood and more.
I’ve written a few notes on each specific story, if you haven’t read it a lot of them probably won’t make much sense. But I’m going to include them here because I wrote them, so why not!
TL;DR for them though, this book was a really interesting read!
Mr Yuk:
“All the man of the house could do was register repulsion” hit deep.
The idea of having a crush on the image of something that could kill you? That’s just SCREAMING metaphors Henry!!! But also really love the universal experience of having a crush on random images and fictional characters from our childhoods.
Unicorn:
I’m just sad for little Henry!! But at the same time grateful that blonde boy showed his true colours before he got too deep into being a co-bully. The ponytail was beyond bad! But the idea of kicking someone into an electric fence is psychotic behaviour. Yeesh.
Wahoowa:
What did Charlottesville do to get such a negative reputation? 😂 (based on the next one, racism!)
Gold star:
As a sick writer, how can he say gold stars ruined his education when they encouraged him to keep being sick! That being said, I really enjoyed Hoke took a race history and tied it back to the theme that we aren’t taught any of this, and we are rewarded for the little we know. The ending of sitting and waiting to actually learn something was really powerful!
Constellation:
While the sticker metaphor for growing up was really visceral and relatable (the glow in the dark stars were very much a symbol for childhood) this one took off like crazy when he started listing what his brother was better at. Holy man I just learned so much about his brother and Henry in a page and a half of a list. That was intense! Loved it.
Chiquita:
The idea of scab’s being natures sticker to cover up something gory really stuck with me. Hoke took an essay that was essentially about his childhood bullies and made really beautiful observations about the experience of growing up and slowly learning all the parts of his queerness
Reinforcer:
I honestly forgot reinforcements existed, but what a good sticker to pick as a metaphor for moments in his life. I really enjoyed the last page where hoke talked about the novel as a whole, and how these 20 random “stickers” get us a closer picture of who he is.
Proud Parent:
The idea of your parent’s wheelchair being a member of the family is a really great image. “Fred shows me the inaccessibility of the world” hit me really hard.
Parental Advisory Explicit Content:
Parental advisory is a GOOD sticker to focus a coming of age essay on. Hoke definitely tricked me with the hook of “I became an orphan on a snow day” and a story that I thought would break my heart, warmed it instead. I fell in love with his mom a little bit in this one for being so cool.
Rotunda:
“If the rotunda was a scratch and sniff, it would reek.” Fuuuuck this one was impactful as shit. The idea of Thomas Jefferson’s legacy being a sticker over all of his horrifying crimes is so accurate. And then the way joke ties it in to himself playing Jefferson and stickering over himself and playing this overly masculine monster? Really interesting.
Anarchy:
It’s not surprising to me that the essay called Anarchy, about his life as a punk kid took a very unexpected turn. I was a bit confused reading this one as to how he got from point a to b, thinking that maybe it would all tie together. But it doesn’t. It was just a moment in his life, and a character who eerily was impactful on the morning of his death. Very sad and kinda spooky.
Blueberry:
The idea that our memories aren’t real, they’re just fragments of what we have remembered last is always something that fascinates me. Using a scratch and sniff sticker to remind us that no matter what, our reminders cant contain all senses (such as smell) was really wild.
Death to the Pixies:
Reclaiming shame from “you are gay” graffiti on his car by putting a bumper sticker with a dick on it on his new car? Amazing. I also loved the section where he described all the houses he drove by and the people in them in a quick sentence. It gave a real sense of his home and where he grew up, and how it’s changed today.
Pink Circle:
The idea of still wanting to work in a video store today? I get it Henry. I get it. Honestly the fact that Henry Hoke is a film guy makes me like him even more. I felt SO MUCH nostalgia in this one.
Heart:
This one reminds me of my family, the way everyone slowly fell into disability. It’s wild the resilience we build after the initial accident. Horrible that we get used to it.
Fire Dancer:
“Whenever I tell this story, I’m lying. It actually happened to dad. It’s ok if that makes you doubt the veracity of my memoir.” Why is relating our town to the one famous person from it such a universal experience? He didn’t want to talk about Dave Matthews, and yet, of course he did!
Be nice to me I gave blood today:
The guilt of not giving blood even though it’s not a choice and not being deserving of the sticker??? Gah. I’m upset!!
Are you triggered:
“Afraid to peel stickers for the fear of the residue you’ll leave behind.” What a great metaphor for the removal of racist statues. You can’t have a book about queerness without addressing the fascist president and the results of that!
Hail Satan:
Feeling need to cover up his progressive views and his comedic sticker in the workplace because fascism is on the rise is pissing me off. Mostly because it doesn’t surprise me at all.
HH:
The connection of his initials to the white surpremisist sticker that means “Heil Hitler” is bleak as hell. Interesting that he also mentions Heather Heyer with the initials, who was a white person killed by white supremisists for protesting them. I also find it really interesting that he ends the book with this one. The dark and bleak world of Charlottesville and its racism, and then the simple “I’m from there.”
November 19, 2021
The concept behind Henry Hoke’s Sticker is an interesting one. That a person’s life could be told from the vantage point of the stickers they encounter. It interested me enough that I decided to take a look at this arc provided by NetGalley.
I have to say I was less than impressed though. The various essays are from different time periods and are incredibly varying lengths. Some essays are a couple of pages well others go on for around ten pages. There does not seem to be any continuity. Though there seems to be a slight progression in time the only thing that ties all twenty essays together is this idea of the sticker, specifically the idea of stretch and sniff stickers and how different things would smell if they were scratch and sniff stickers.
Those some of the stories are ones that I can imagine will stick in my mind for a while, I didn’t find anything super compelling about what Hoke had to say. I was less than impressed. Admittedly, each reader is different and perhaps other readers will be drawn in to this memoiresque series of essays. It just wasn’t for me.
I have to say I was less than impressed though. The various essays are from different time periods and are incredibly varying lengths. Some essays are a couple of pages well others go on for around ten pages. There does not seem to be any continuity. Though there seems to be a slight progression in time the only thing that ties all twenty essays together is this idea of the sticker, specifically the idea of stretch and sniff stickers and how different things would smell if they were scratch and sniff stickers.
Those some of the stories are ones that I can imagine will stick in my mind for a while, I didn’t find anything super compelling about what Hoke had to say. I was less than impressed. Admittedly, each reader is different and perhaps other readers will be drawn in to this memoiresque series of essays. It just wasn’t for me.
January 3, 2022
A story told through an object—it’s a neat idea. Henry Hoke tells the story of his life through memorable stickers, from Mr Yuk to gold stars to blueberry scratch and sniff. I really wanted to like this and it isn’t that I didn’t *like* it, I just didn’t…like it.
I would have liked to actually learn something about the history of stickers, which I didn’t. Instead this is about growing up queer, and it’s a meditation on Charlottesville. Charlottesville, VA, is now known as the FIRST site where a Nazi ran down a peaceful protestor (sadly other drivers have done the same at sun sequent protests). Charlottesville’s racist history plays a large role in the book, and I appreciated each section, but they didn’t hang together well. I am a quick reader usually, but I had to force myself to pick this one up and so it took almost 2 months for me to read it.
I would read this if you really like experimental memoir or are from Charlottesville. Otherwise I think you can find better.
Thank you to NetGalley and Bloomsbury Academic for a pre-print in return for an honest review.
I would have liked to actually learn something about the history of stickers, which I didn’t. Instead this is about growing up queer, and it’s a meditation on Charlottesville. Charlottesville, VA, is now known as the FIRST site where a Nazi ran down a peaceful protestor (sadly other drivers have done the same at sun sequent protests). Charlottesville’s racist history plays a large role in the book, and I appreciated each section, but they didn’t hang together well. I am a quick reader usually, but I had to force myself to pick this one up and so it took almost 2 months for me to read it.
I would read this if you really like experimental memoir or are from Charlottesville. Otherwise I think you can find better.
Thank you to NetGalley and Bloomsbury Academic for a pre-print in return for an honest review.
January 29, 2022
This is my review of Stickers: I didn't like this. I love anthologies, and in general I really like short stories regardless of if they're fiction/nonfiction. This one in particular didn't do it for me. I think I went into this expecting a more metaphysical experience. But no.
I'm sure there's an audience for this style and vibe of memoir, but sadly I'm not one of those people. I'm giving this one star because I can't think of anything I enjoyed after reading this, but to be respectful to the author I won't be making any direct critiques. That just feels wrong, especially since nothing was structurally flawed. My opinions are around content, and judging nonfiction feels particularly uncomfortable.
Thanks NetGalley for the copy in exchange for an honest review.
I'm sure there's an audience for this style and vibe of memoir, but sadly I'm not one of those people. I'm giving this one star because I can't think of anything I enjoyed after reading this, but to be respectful to the author I won't be making any direct critiques. That just feels wrong, especially since nothing was structurally flawed. My opinions are around content, and judging nonfiction feels particularly uncomfortable.
Thanks NetGalley for the copy in exchange for an honest review.
February 23, 2022
Hoke takes aim at nostalgia, but gets stuck on stereotypes and middle-class discontent. I unfortunately found myself sighing "ugh, shut up already".
July 12, 2024
A solid memoir told through stickers. I thought this was a really neat way to write a memoir, to tell the story of a person through stickers and what he associates with them. Being from Charlottesville, Hoke doesn't shy away from talking about the white supremacist rallies held there and the town's history of racism; It's as central to the narrative of this novel as his life is, because it's the story of his hometown. Hoke does a great job of thinking through things and explaining how he gets there, weaving a slim book into something that makes us think deeply about how where we grow up can shape us. I'm trying to read more nonfiction, and this type of nonfiction is something that makes me excited to read more.
Each chapter is a different sticker, and each chapter (if I remember correctly) has a sentence that explains what the sticker would smell like if it were scratch and sniff, which I think is genius. Here's my favorite, from the chapter "Be Nice to Me I Gave Blood Today".
If our blood was a scratch and sniff, it'd smell like ivy in the yard, like an artificial fireplace, like microwave nachos, like dehumidifiers, like Mentholatum, like fever dreams where our hands are too big to hold our little books, like icing squeezed out of a tube onto toaster pastries, like metal buttons to open doors, like a heating pad, like a crepuscular Oldsmobile, like chicken livers from the KFC drive-thru, like mouth-scalding coffee that's somehow never hot enough, like audiobooks of cozy cat mysteries and graphic horse breeding, like the waterfalls by the highway around Chattanooga, like potato chips (but just the foldy ones), like Jack Russell terriers, like the dry dead grass of the Deep South, like an Alabama lake after a tornado, like puddles of gasoline and fresh rain, like thunder bouncing off the 23rd floor of a Manhattan apartment tower, like every crack in the sidewalk that others avoid stepping on to spare their mothers' backs and that I roll Mom right over, like inherited trauma, like a tense present.
Each chapter is a different sticker, and each chapter (if I remember correctly) has a sentence that explains what the sticker would smell like if it were scratch and sniff, which I think is genius. Here's my favorite, from the chapter "Be Nice to Me I Gave Blood Today".
If our blood was a scratch and sniff, it'd smell like ivy in the yard, like an artificial fireplace, like microwave nachos, like dehumidifiers, like Mentholatum, like fever dreams where our hands are too big to hold our little books, like icing squeezed out of a tube onto toaster pastries, like metal buttons to open doors, like a heating pad, like a crepuscular Oldsmobile, like chicken livers from the KFC drive-thru, like mouth-scalding coffee that's somehow never hot enough, like audiobooks of cozy cat mysteries and graphic horse breeding, like the waterfalls by the highway around Chattanooga, like potato chips (but just the foldy ones), like Jack Russell terriers, like the dry dead grass of the Deep South, like an Alabama lake after a tornado, like puddles of gasoline and fresh rain, like thunder bouncing off the 23rd floor of a Manhattan apartment tower, like every crack in the sidewalk that others avoid stepping on to spare their mothers' backs and that I roll Mom right over, like inherited trauma, like a tense present.
February 12, 2022
"I was thinking about all the rubbish, the flopping plastic in the branches, the shoreline of odd stuff caught along the fencing, and I half-closed my eyes and imagined this was the spot where everything I'd ever lost since my childhood had washed up..."
Kazuo Ishiguro Never Let Me Go
Objects can hold great personal power. It could be a toy from your childhood, your first, car, for Henry Hoke it is stickers. As our personal artifacts become increasingly digital, the power of small objects can tell the story of a life. In Henry Hoke's book, Sticker, he uses a series of stickers to detail his life and the community of Charlottesville, Virginia leading up to the deadly Unite The Right Rally in 2017.
Growing up in Virginia can make you unaware of the dark history within. This can be represented in how local holidays are celebrated. Lee-Jackson-King Day was celebrated (Robert E Lee, Stonewall Jackson, both Confederate War Generals celebrated on the same day as Martin Luther King Day from 1984 to 2000) instead of Martin Luther King Day. Hoke blends this local history and symbolism with his own. Hoke focuses on objects from his childhood. A constellation on the ceiling of his room or an anarchy sticker during a rebellious phase. Finally the Charlottesville sticker, a C-HEART-Ville to commemorate the community's resistance to the deadly White Suppremicist rally that led to violent clashes and death on August 12, 2017.
Each chapter focuses on a sticker with a story that follows, much like a writer's prompt. I liked this technique. It makes the experience very visceral. Some aspects felt very nostalgic for me (video stories, music choices, etc.) It is a very moving series of essays that are inspired by very small objects. Objects like these can carry powerful symbols for both evil and for good.
Kazuo Ishiguro Never Let Me Go
Objects can hold great personal power. It could be a toy from your childhood, your first, car, for Henry Hoke it is stickers. As our personal artifacts become increasingly digital, the power of small objects can tell the story of a life. In Henry Hoke's book, Sticker, he uses a series of stickers to detail his life and the community of Charlottesville, Virginia leading up to the deadly Unite The Right Rally in 2017.
Growing up in Virginia can make you unaware of the dark history within. This can be represented in how local holidays are celebrated. Lee-Jackson-King Day was celebrated (Robert E Lee, Stonewall Jackson, both Confederate War Generals celebrated on the same day as Martin Luther King Day from 1984 to 2000) instead of Martin Luther King Day. Hoke blends this local history and symbolism with his own. Hoke focuses on objects from his childhood. A constellation on the ceiling of his room or an anarchy sticker during a rebellious phase. Finally the Charlottesville sticker, a C-HEART-Ville to commemorate the community's resistance to the deadly White Suppremicist rally that led to violent clashes and death on August 12, 2017.
Each chapter focuses on a sticker with a story that follows, much like a writer's prompt. I liked this technique. It makes the experience very visceral. Some aspects felt very nostalgic for me (video stories, music choices, etc.) It is a very moving series of essays that are inspired by very small objects. Objects like these can carry powerful symbols for both evil and for good.
June 9, 2023
I RECEIVED A DRC FROM THE PUBLISHER VIA NETGALLEY. THANK YOU.
My Review: Twenty little meditative essays inspired by a ubiquitous part of 1980s and 1990s childhoods: Stickers. (GAWD how I hated the damned things. "Easy release" my lily-white one! I was still finding them on the undersides of chairs and backs of paintings in 2010.)
Author Hoke shines in these quick hits of memory, bringing the reader back into his world as it was and thinking about his various challenges...disabled mother in a wheelchair, absent father, being queer in Charlottesville, Virginia...and the roots his white self has in the South, with all the freight that implies.
He reckons with comparatively large parts of his ancestral racism; he states that, with all its contradictions, he intends this read to make his identity "...a little more tangible." Without being acquainted with the gentleman, I feel that I have a picture of him as a person that would never be obtainable through any more rigorous, structured look at what makes a person into the unique self they are. No, it's not autobiography, or even memoir, it's that rare thing : The reflective essay, the thoughtful, loosely organized look into the back corners of the closets and the darker recesses of the attic for the bright, shiny things once delighted in and now gathering patina and dust in unused parts of one's mind
I enjoyed myself as I wandered around with Author Hoke as he showed me his once-prized gewgaws and knick-knacks. Join us for a good old wander.
My Review: Twenty little meditative essays inspired by a ubiquitous part of 1980s and 1990s childhoods: Stickers. (GAWD how I hated the damned things. "Easy release" my lily-white one! I was still finding them on the undersides of chairs and backs of paintings in 2010.)
Author Hoke shines in these quick hits of memory, bringing the reader back into his world as it was and thinking about his various challenges...disabled mother in a wheelchair, absent father, being queer in Charlottesville, Virginia...and the roots his white self has in the South, with all the freight that implies.
He reckons with comparatively large parts of his ancestral racism; he states that, with all its contradictions, he intends this read to make his identity "...a little more tangible." Without being acquainted with the gentleman, I feel that I have a picture of him as a person that would never be obtainable through any more rigorous, structured look at what makes a person into the unique self they are. No, it's not autobiography, or even memoir, it's that rare thing : The reflective essay, the thoughtful, loosely organized look into the back corners of the closets and the darker recesses of the attic for the bright, shiny things once delighted in and now gathering patina and dust in unused parts of one's mind
I enjoyed myself as I wandered around with Author Hoke as he showed me his once-prized gewgaws and knick-knacks. Join us for a good old wander.
January 9, 2022
Originally posted on my blog: Nonstop Reader.
Sticker is a collection of short vignettes and reminiscences by Henry Hoke of growing up in Charlottesville Va in the 90s related through the lens of 20 different stickers. Due out 13th Jan 2022 from Bloomsbury Academic, it's 164 pages and will be available in paperback and ebook formats.
This is one of a series of books on everyday items called "Object Lessons" which team writers' observations and experiences with material foci: stickers, bookshelves, bulletproof vest, traffic, TVs, and trees to give a few examples.
There were some a-ha moments in the course of reading. I was previously unaware where Mr. Hoke grew up (Charlottesville) and he ties in the recent infamy and cultural upheaval through his own observations and the responses he's garnered from folks who find out that he's from Charlottesville. He's arranged the responses chronologically from 1998-2018 with grim results.
I have enjoyed a number of the books in this series. It's erudite and thought provoking. This one was a worthwhile addition.
Four stars.
Disclosure: I received an ARC at no cost from the author/publisher for review purposes.
Sticker is a collection of short vignettes and reminiscences by Henry Hoke of growing up in Charlottesville Va in the 90s related through the lens of 20 different stickers. Due out 13th Jan 2022 from Bloomsbury Academic, it's 164 pages and will be available in paperback and ebook formats.
This is one of a series of books on everyday items called "Object Lessons" which team writers' observations and experiences with material foci: stickers, bookshelves, bulletproof vest, traffic, TVs, and trees to give a few examples.
There were some a-ha moments in the course of reading. I was previously unaware where Mr. Hoke grew up (Charlottesville) and he ties in the recent infamy and cultural upheaval through his own observations and the responses he's garnered from folks who find out that he's from Charlottesville. He's arranged the responses chronologically from 1998-2018 with grim results.
I have enjoyed a number of the books in this series. It's erudite and thought provoking. This one was a worthwhile addition.
Four stars.
Disclosure: I received an ARC at no cost from the author/publisher for review purposes.
December 7, 2021
Part of a series of books that examine the ordinary life of everyday things, Sticker (Object Lessons) is so much more than I expected. Sticker is a memoir told in stickers. For those of us who grew up in the 80's and 90's, there are some especially fun throwbacks. Do you remember stickers from your childhood? What about the constellation stickers that were meant to go on a bedroom ceiling and mimic the night sky? What about the fruit sticker on the Chiquita brand banana? Did you ever buy a CD that came with the Parental Advisory sticker on the front? I bet most of you haven't given much thought to these stickers in quite some time. I hadn't either! This slim volume contains multitudes pulled from the every day banality of stickers and brings meaning into them in a unique way. Each sticker evokes a memory in the author, from something simple, like a sticker meant to signal harmful chemicals on household cleaners, to something meaningful like the 'HH' sticker that is most likely meant to represent a town, but instead, under the context of a white supremacist rally that the author is protesting, comes to mean "Heil Hitler". I was drawn in by the stories and the writing style. This book is a fast read, with a big punch.
Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for the E-ARC.
Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for the E-ARC.
December 13, 2021
Sticker is a a sort of memoir told in a series of snapshots, each related to a particular sticker. From bumper stickers to warning labels, each sticker reveals a bit more of Hoke's experience growing up in Charlottesville before the chaos of racial riots in 2017. He deals with disability, questions his sexuality, tests out how to be a good friend, and finds his dream job while watching the world divide around him.
For most of this book, I felt like I was looking at a complex piece of modern art. There are many things it could represent, but I was unsure which ones the author intended. Toward the end, it arrives on a more distinct conclusion regarding Hoke's own sympathies as a liberal-minded individual who grew up in the South, but between and before that, it spends a lot of time giving context and offering anecdotes that are never quite funny. It has too much coarse language for me to be able to use it in a class for those under 18. However it holds distinct possibilities as a way to introduce students to writing their own memoirs and gives a foundation for explaining how to separate oneself from the culture in which one has grown up.
For most of this book, I felt like I was looking at a complex piece of modern art. There are many things it could represent, but I was unsure which ones the author intended. Toward the end, it arrives on a more distinct conclusion regarding Hoke's own sympathies as a liberal-minded individual who grew up in the South, but between and before that, it spends a lot of time giving context and offering anecdotes that are never quite funny. It has too much coarse language for me to be able to use it in a class for those under 18. However it holds distinct possibilities as a way to introduce students to writing their own memoirs and gives a foundation for explaining how to separate oneself from the culture in which one has grown up.
January 19, 2022
This is actually a 3.5 star read for me. I can’t exactly say I enjoyed it, and I really didn’t like the first 20% or so because of the segmented style (which may just be a symptom of the Object Lessons books, generally, as I have never read one before now).
That said, the last half of this book really spoke to me. I got an eerie sense of deja vu reading reflections on Hoke growing up in—and in some ways, growing out of—Charlottesville, VA.
Charlottesville has always kind of given me that sense, of being in an in-between place. It’s only two hours outside of D.C., which I have called home since 2017, but driving through Charlottesville gives me the creepy feeling of driving through an inverted image of Oxford, MS, where I went to college. This book gave me the exact same slightly off sense of familiarity as driving past the UVA campus for the first time and thinking, “I could actually be at Ole Miss right now.”
Some books aren’t fun to read, but they do resonate. I won’t forget Sticker anytime soon.
That said, the last half of this book really spoke to me. I got an eerie sense of deja vu reading reflections on Hoke growing up in—and in some ways, growing out of—Charlottesville, VA.
Charlottesville has always kind of given me that sense, of being in an in-between place. It’s only two hours outside of D.C., which I have called home since 2017, but driving through Charlottesville gives me the creepy feeling of driving through an inverted image of Oxford, MS, where I went to college. This book gave me the exact same slightly off sense of familiarity as driving past the UVA campus for the first time and thinking, “I could actually be at Ole Miss right now.”
Some books aren’t fun to read, but they do resonate. I won’t forget Sticker anytime soon.
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