gods with a little g

by Tupelo Hassman

From the acclaimed author of Girlchild, this gritty, irreverent novel sees a young misfit grow into hope

Rosary, California, is not an easy place to grow up, particularly without a mom. So cut off from the rest of the world that even the Internet is blocked, Rosary is a town named by Catholics but run by evangelicals (and the evangelicals aren’t particularly happy about that). It’s a town on very formal relations with its neighbors, one that doesn’t have much traffic in or out and that boasts an oil refinery as well as a fairly sizable population of teenagers.

For Helen and her friends, the Tire Yard, sex, and beer are the best ways to pass the days until they turn eighteen and can leave Sky County. Her best friends, Win and Rainbolene, late arrivals to Rosary, are particularly keen to depart—Rain in part because she’ll finally be able to get the hormones she needs to fully become herself. Watching over them is Aunt Bev, an outcast like the kids, who runs the barely tolerated Psychic Encounter Shoppe. As time passes, though, tensions are amping up for everyone: and threats against the Psychic Encounter Shoppe become actions. What these flawed, lovable characters in Tupelo Hassman’s gods with a little g discover about one another in the process will reshape how they think about trust and family, and how to make a future you can see.

Genres: Fiction, Contemporary, LGBT, Literary Fiction, Queer, Coming Of Age, Young Adult

288 pages, Kindle Edition

First published August 13, 2019

About the author

Tupelo Hassman's first novel, girlchild, was published in 2012 by Farrar, Straus and Giroux. Her work has also appeared in The Boston Globe, Paper Street Press, The Portland Review Literary Journal, Tantalum, We Still Like, ZYZZYVA, and by 100WordStory.org, FiveChapters.com, and Invisible City Audio Tours. More is forthcoming from The Arroyo Review Literary Journal, Harper's Bazaar, and This Land. Tupelo collected footage of girlchild's book tour for a short documentary, Hardbound: A Novel's Life on the Road, and the jury is still out on whether or not this was a terrible idea.

Reviews

[Vanessa · Rating 5 out of 5]

Hot diggity damn I love this book so much. Yes it’s teenagey and angsty but gosh darn the writing is so exciting and refreshing! It’s rare I get so excited about a new author and this has been a wonderful discovery! There are too many reasons to list why I loved this book so I’ll let you all discover it for yourself. Probably one of my top reads of the year!

[Kyra Leseberg (Roots & Reads) · Rating 4 out of 5]

"If you were flying in a plane over Rosary, California, the first thing you'd see is me, a skinny white girl with messy hair and a big backpack, waving you on. 'Keep going,' I'd say." *

Helen is tired of living in Rosary, a town named by Catholics but now run by Thumpers (Bible-thumping evangelicals) who have alienated the surrounding towns.

"Rosary is like that bully in the schoolyard who looks around when the dust settles and says, 'Where did everybody go?'" *

Rosary doesn't want to be isolated from their neighboring city Sky but they don't condone their lifestyle choices and they certainly don't want them to influence the teens of Rosary.

Little do the Thumpers know Helen and her group of misfit friends, the self-proclaimed Dickheads, spend their afternoons at Fast Eddie's Tire Yard drinking beer and their nights dialing in to a Sky radio station that discusses topics that are off-limits in their hometown.  

gods with a little g follows Helen through her junior year: navigating life with her best friends Win and Rain, coming to terms with her dad's first relationship since her mom died, and harboring a secret crush on bad boy Bird ...who may become her stepbrother (awkwaaaard).

Full of lovable quirky characters in a modern dystopia, gods with a little g is a unique and gritty coming-of-age story that doesn't shy away from complicated and relevant topics like gender identity and abortion.

Thanks to Farrar, Straus, and Giroux and NetGalley for providing me with an ARC in exchange for my honest review.  gods with a little g is scheduled for release on August 13, 2019.

*Quotes included are from a digital advanced reader's copy and are subject to change upon final publication.

For more reviews, visit www.rootsandreads.wordpress.com

[Sarah · Rating 3 out of 5]

A snarky and off-beat coming of age novel set in the California town of Rosary. The town is populated by a lot of very religious people (dubbed the Thumpers), but we follow Helen and her friends who dub themselves "The Dickheads" and spend their time drinking beer at a tyre yard and reading porn novels. Helen is in her junior year and navigating crushes, her father's new relationship in the wake of her mother's death and the usual trials and tribulations of high school. Ultimately a little light on plot for my liking, I'm sure this novel will speak to many with similar teenage experiences.

Thank you Netgalley and Farrar, Straus and Giroux for the advance copy, which was provided in exchange for an honest review.

[Lata · Rating 4 out of 5]

- Well written story with a compelling main character, and well described emotional situations, despite its super short chapters with their episodic format.
- Thin on plot, but lots of great characterization. For example, I love the way the author described Helen Dedleder's grief over her mother's death, and her various self-destructive actions coming out of that. And Helen's inability to recognize how she felt about the people around her, including her friends.
- I really enjoyed Helen's relationship with her scandalous aunt, the owner of the psychic store.
- Though I found my interest flagging a little around the halfway mark, I stuck with the book, and liked its resolution.

[Lindsay Loson · Rating 5 out of 5]

"I'm just going to say it. I did something nice for Iris. I didn't mean to...I seem to be having these fits of niceness. Like allergies or something. Before I can even find a tissue, I've snotted niceness all over the place."

I cannot contain how much I loved this book. It is incredibly easy to get through, told in vignettes that feel almost too personal, like reading someone's diary. You instantly fall in love with Helen and her band of misfits, and feel the pain of living in a town that suffocates them. This was a book that I didn't want to put down, that I wanted to forgo work and meals and tv/movies for. Whenever I had to do something else, I just kept thinking about how much I wanted to get back to reading it. Hassman effortlessly weaves this anti-coming of age story, with somewhat of an anti-heroine in Hell, and I loved every bit of it. I honestly never wanted it to end; I could've kept reading about the comings and goings of Rosary for another whole book. It tackles so many issues relevant to the world today, but in a way that makes you want to do better and be better because it's the right thing to do. I felt a little bit like Hell going through all of her changes while reading this, because I definitely came out a little different on the other end, in the best way possible.

[Audra (ouija.reads) · Rating 5 out of 5]

Tupelo Hassman has shot to the top of my *holy crap this writer is incredible* list.

A coming-of-age story with such a strong and spirited voice that it basically vibrates right off the page. I was Helen as I read these pages—I felt her experience, the emotional journey, everything, deep in my soul. And I loved it.

The cover is amazing, as you can see, and it is so perfectly suited to the book, since Helen uses the idea (metaphorically and sometimes literally) of “Lost” posters throughout the book as a physical manifestation of how she’s reacting to change. I loved this aspect of the book—Her lost cat poster for a cat that went missing when her mom died is a small act of rebellion against her dad’s new girlfriend. Her (humorous) lost dad poster signifies how she’s feeling as her dad finds love again and seems to be a new and different person. This is just a small taste of the insight this book has to offer.

The writing is exquisite. Humorous, tongue-in-cheek, and witty, Helen’s voice sparkles and surprises, and I wanted her to be my best friend. The book is written from the immediacy of the teenage experience as it is being experienced, unlike so many coming-of-age narratives that are told from some point in the future by an older, wiser version of the character. Not so here. You get the straight facts, emotions, experience—just as Helen sees it.

Her specific experience, one of being stuck in a town that’s so cut off from the rest of the world that they can block specific parts of the internet and ban kids from getting tattoos based on some inane part of the Bible, is not necessarily one that is universal in itself. But her emotional experiences of first love, sexual urges, injustices, being an outcast, feeling alone, not knowing how to grieve for her mother and deal with her father moving on, and just wanting more from life hit me deeply. Not only did I feel her journey, but it felt so real.

I loved this book. One of my favorites of the year so far.

Thank you, thank you, FSG for putting this one in my hands to read and review.

[Karyl · Rating 2 out of 5]

Rosary, California, is a town without internet or much communication with the outside word, full of born-again Christians Helen calls “Thumpers.” She and her friends are outcasts, and as such hang out at a tire yard and refer to themselves as the “Dickheads,” a rag-tag bunch that may fight among themselves but defend each other against the outside world.

The first half of this novel seems to be just a series of vignettes, not even really chronologically told. It was hard to really get into the novel as a result, or even to build in my head the world that Hassman invites the reader into. I found myself having a hard time keeping my mind focused; my brain kept wandering off. The second half finally seems to hit its stride, and it wasn’t until then that I was really pulled into the story. Had this not been for my book club, I may not have bothered to finish it.

I wasn’t terribly bothered by all the sex and masturbation in this novel; teens are powered by sex. But it did feel very icky to know that Fast Eddie, a grown adult male, supplied the Dickheads with beer if the girls would show him their breasts or let him touch them until he climaxed. Considering the girls were younger than 18, that’s absolutely molestation.

This book definitely wasn’t my cup of tea, and I can’t say I’m glad I read it.

[Matt · Rating 5 out of 5]

The teenage years are difficult, confusing, and scary. Tenuous. This has been true since the 20th century advent of this transitory phase of life. Tupelo Hassman perform a minor mirace by breathing refreshing new life into the bildungsroman in the of-the-moment, sharp, jaded, and hopeful GODS WITH A LITTLE G. In a very near (and terrifyingly *very close*) future where entire American cities have divided on Red/Blue political and religious fault lines, we ride shotgun with 16 year-old Helen for a year of her life. In the depressed (and depressing) and culturally barren Evangelical Christian-controlled town of Rosary, CA, Helen and her dirtbag friends--the self-named "Dickheads"--negotiate the emotional landmines, dirty bombs and friendly fire that pockmark the teenage landscape. Hassman renders Helen with such humanity and emotional specificity, that every emotional peak, valley and free fall whips the reader along. Heartbreaking and hopeful, and--most of all--emotionally honest, every beat of GODS WITH A LITTLE G lands. It's glorious.

[Sharondblk · Rating 4 out of 5]

Sometimes it's hard to categorise a book, which makes it hard to review it, and much harder to give it a score out of five. Some books don't need a score, they are what they are. This book is sweet and sad and hopeful, and self contained and sure of itself. I initially found the short chapters offputting, but it works very well with the tone of the book. The ending was maybe a bit too sweet, but that could just be my cynical old heart talking, and the journey to get there was a lovely, happy / sad trip.

Thanks to NetGalley and Farrar, Straus and Company for the eArc in exchange for an honest review.

[Cassie · Rating 4 out of 5]

So good! I couldn't put it down. It was exactly what I was looking for....big-hearted, sarcastic, honest, painful, hilarious, gritty, melancholy and quirky. Helen is such a tender, sassy, curious and confused badass. I want a part 2!

[Emily · Rating 4 out of 5]

Oh this BOOK! Hassman has such an incredible gift as a writer from the teenage voice. This book, with its short chapters is a fast-paced and delightful window into Helen, a young woman who has lost her mother and is being raised by an emotionally traumatized father in the evangelical-minded town of Rosary, CA. Helen and her cast of friends hang out in a Tire Yard trying to find their way to adulthood when they can flee to, hopefully, bigger and brighter futures. Filled with teenage angst, but just the right amount, you will love these characters and be very sad when turning the last page.


Discussed on Episode 25 of Book Cougars Podcast

[Robin Robertson · Rating 4 out of 5]

Rosary - a town dominated by Evangelicals. Helen - a teenaged girl dealing with grief and loss, self identity, and a desire to be loved and wanted. This book is a journey with Helen, her friends and family towards self discovery. I was a fairly adventurous teenager(my church youth group went skinny dipping), but some of the teens activities in this story made me blink a few times. Have I grown too old! The chapters with Helen's inner dialogues were bittersweet and hopeful. A little gem.
Thank you NetGalley for an advanced copy.
#NrtGalley
#Farrar, Straus and Giroux

[Emily (em.is.all.booked) · Rating 4 out of 5]

So I really had no idea what I was getting into with this book. Sure I read the inner flap, but the novel exceeded my expectations and I ended up loving it! I would classify this as a coming of age novel in a Footloose-esque conservative town.

Rosary, California is a town that through local elections becomes governed by evangelical Christians that change everything from education curriculum to mandatory Vacation Bible School to the types of businesses that can operate. Helen is a high schooler trying to process the death of her mother years earlier, her dad wanting to remarry now, and the complicated social dynamics of high school. When she makes friends with the two new kids at school, Helen begins to see that maybe she’s not the only one with struggles.

I thought this book was great! Helen was a fully rounded character, and her dry, sarcastic remarks kept me laughing throughout. She was flawed, but not to the point of being cruel or annoying. None of the characters felt painfully “teenager” which I sometimes struggle with when reading YA or adult books featuring them.

I enjoyed the short chapters, the timeline was mostly linear with a few chapters describing flashbacks of what Helen’s mom was like. It really makes this book a quick read.

Overall I would recommend this book to anyone who enjoys sarcastic humor and a well done coming of age story!

[Amy · Rating 4 out of 5]

This story follows Helen, our narrator, as she navigates her adolescence in a town called Rosary, which is under the rule of a Christian theocracy. Helen's mom passed away from cancer some years ago, and she is taking care of her depressed father, who is completely disconnected from his duties as a father. Another prominent familial character is her aunt, who is the heathen of the town, running a psychic shop and little under the table "dirty business". Helen finds comfort with her aunt, but still feels utterly disconnected from the world and her family. Helen does what most teenagers do - rebel. She and her rebellious friends drink, have sex, all while dreaming of escaping their miserable town and existence. Through many difficult and eye-opening experiences, Helen finds love and connection with friends and family she didn't think she could ever have. That's the lovely part. The best part is her humor - witty, dry, sarcastic, clearly bitter at God and the system that rules her. I laughed out loud throughout the book. Helen is so likable and very relatable for those of us who grew up in a strict religious family and community and wanted nothing more than to break away from it.

[Joanna · Rating 2 out of 5]

Maybe if I were a teenager I would have enjoyed this book more, but as an adult, not so much. The story is essentially a modern day Footloose - misfit teenagers in a town of “bible thumpers” looking for a way to relate to escape. I did appreciate that the novel deals with real issues that impact teenage life in this day and age (and always, although likely swept under the rug). There is a transgender character, a teen pregnancy, and real teenage relationships. There are some poignant moments where you feel the angst of the characters, but outside of those few moments there is nothing relatable about the characters and no depth. Not that books have to be uplifting, but this one definitely is not. It falls into the disturbing category, but with no lessons learned or empathy created. The writing style also seemed aimed at a much younger audience and didn’t capture me. I don’t think I would seek out this author again.

[Dana · Rating 5 out of 5]

4.5/5. It has been a long time since I’ve read a book for grown ups that is so real about teenagers and the short bursts of important insights that shine through being lost and hormonal and snarky to protect the tender bits too raw to take another hit. I have my own teens now and this pulled at memories and feelings I thought had jumped ship over the decades to make room for adulting. Hell is that soon-to-be-woman I couldn’t help but cheer every step of her self-discovering way - battling against the Conservative Thumpers, hoping to get far far out of town, and finding the strength to stay and stand with her band of misfit friends, the Dickheads. It’s an easy read that still packs a lot of feeling from boredom to hope to loss and grief to lust and love. Sometimes to be a hero you just have to accept and love people for who they are.

[Adhima Ratnaningtyas · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book took a concept of rebellious teenager phase into a very clever and refreshing take of coming of age book. These coming of age books are tricky, because most of the time it felt too angsty and edgy that you can’t help but cringe upon reading them, but this book blended those angsty and edgy feelings with a very beautiful, poetic writing, yet still felt so relatable and simple at the same time and birthed such a unique coming of age book. This book felt so intimate, with all of Helen’s flaws and worries knifed out all over the pages, discussing the concept of grief, changes, and moving on in some sort of lost and found posters, and the wording that made this book so intimate almost made it felt like I was reading Helen’s diary entries. Set in a secluded city where God are everywhere, literally, Helen and her friends felt like rebellion and doing all things that God’s hate were the only ways to gains their freedom, to finally have control over themselves. Because when they can see God everywhere, in everyone, they became more and more desired to play gods.

[Ryan Mishap · Rating 1 out of 5]

"...or have you escaped from scrutiny and regaled yourself with depravity?" --Bad Religion

I wanted to like this since I was amazed by her debut novel, but this is raunchy and disgusting with very few redeemable themes, thoughts, or offerings. This is a spoiler, but it will tell you why you should stay away from this:

There's a near middle-age guy who runs a junkyard where the misfit kids hang out and he gives them beer if the girls show him their breasts--extra beer for letting him feel them up. Later, our narrator expresses sorrow and kindness for him since his wife died-and she finds this out because she sees him jerking off to her portrait photo in his car and the rest is even grosser so I will stop.

I get it: broken people do fucked up things but sympathy for adults who sexually assault teenagers is beyond the pale. Stay away.

[devon kellner ⭐️ · Rating 5 out of 5]

my first audio book in a little while and I looooved it.

when I started it i thought it was going to be three stars, but I was pleasantly surprised. this had everything I want in a coming of age novel; messy, raw characters, complicated friendships, a romance subplot , and the perfect mix of self awareness and self discovery within our cynical protagonist.

reminded me of the film ladybird because of our main character’s personality and the religious-town-in-california setting.

while this was a characters > plot book, the author did a great job of preventing that from being boring or slow. the short chapter format made way for multiple smaller events that contributed to driving the story forward and promoting character growth all while keeping the reader interested

overall a great book!! I really enjoyed this

[Katie · Rating 4 out of 5]

I was loving it.  I did love it.  I do love it, but there’s a but, and we’ll get to that later.  Snarkily self-protective high school student Helen Dedleder (hmm, her dad’s a postman) lives in Rosary, California.  Her mother is deceased, so it’s just Helen and her dad, but her dad is zombified with grief, so her Aunt Bev, a psychic, moves to Rosary and opens the Psychic Encounter Shoppe, henceforth referred to as the shoppe.  Now, Rosary, you see, is home to a giant belching refinery, lots and lots of churches and lots and lots of religious folks that Helen calls Thumpers.  The Thumpers pretty much control Rosary, and they are not happy to have a psychic shoppe in their town.  They’re even more unhappy with Aunt Bev’s second job in the back of the shoppe after hours.

Helen and her friends call themselves the Dickheads and they hang out after school at Fast Eddie’s Tire Salvage, drinking beer.  Thumpers aren’t happy with the Dickheads either, and the Dickheads aren’t happy with the Thumpers, so there you go.  Me, I was riding the crest – sexually-obsessed teenagers, quirky misfit angst, a rollicking good time.  Then, near the end, almost home-free with a standing ovation, Ms. Hassman throws in an ill-advised scene that gave me the vapors.  I won’t go into it, but I will say that no one is hurt, so there’s that.  It is, however, ugly, unnecessary, and unnecessarily ugly.  Now this particular scene might not bother you; it doesn’t have to.  And, when all is said and done, this is a meaningful book, a raucous riot of a book, but……..it did bother me.  So, other than that, Mrs. Lincoln, how did you like the play?

Full Disclosure:  A review copy of this book was provided to me by Farrar, Straus and Giroux via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.  I would like to thank the publisher, the author and NetGalley for providing me this opportunity.  All opinions expressed herein are my own.

[Elyssa Gooding · Rating 4 out of 5]

I had a little trouble getting interested in the story and had to restart it 3 times, but once I got a few chapters/sections in, I was invested. The story is dynamic and feels very authentic to the experiences of teenagers. Teenagers make terrible choices and put themselves in danger, but they deserve love and this story is how a group of friends learn to love each other.

[Lynn · Rating 4 out of 5]

Definitely not what I was expecting. I really enjoyed this even though I know it won't be everyone's cup of tea. Had, kind of, The Breakfast Club feel to me. I could see a young Demi Moore type in the lead role. Stunning narration too. One of those books that have you smiling after perfectly formed sentences.

[Haley Counts · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.5/5
So, shocker, I couldn’t really get into this book at first, but suddenly I couldn’t put it down. It was beautifully written and so full of hidden charm that as I got closer to the end I found myself wishing for more pages.

[Margy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Started slow but then I devoured it. Full of snarky one-offs, bits of wisdom, and all around beauty as a group of misfits figure out who they are and what community means to them.

[caroline · Rating 5 out of 5]

anyways i’m trying not to cry,

[amelie mcintosh · Rating 1 out of 5]

dnf with 40 pages to go. worst book i’ve ever read

[Andrew · Rating 5 out of 5]

Is bittersweetly a word? I got bittersweetly lost in gods with a little g. Despite the fact that I would never want to be trapped in a strict, Evangelist suburb that has its own peculiar laws (nor do most of the characters) I was charmed by the charisma of Helen and her ragtag rebel friends, Aunt Bev's socially condemned psychic shoppe, the confusions of love and lust, the search for answers in a town that doesn't seem to want you, the real you. Even the mundanities of a secluded adolescence give off a feeling of nostalgia. A raw and unflinching novel that will stick with me.

[Amber Sherlock · Rating 3 out of 5]

A strict Evangelical suburb vs a ragtag, scally band of rebels makes for an interesting deep dive into the teenage psyche being restricted by religion. Nostalgic, raw and wonderful.

[Maddie · Rating 4 out of 5]

I can't categorize this exactly...bildungsroman but in a political manifesto/ballad for broken souls sort of form. It's like if Vonnegut were an angsty feminist California virgin who drank beer and told fortunes. Overall it was very good, cloyingly poetic and gothically funny, but *so* sacrilegious that even I, an especially secular person, was at times offended.

[Anna · Rating 5 out of 5]

Damn this book is so good: sharp and prickly and yet soft, like being a teen. It’s all struggle and rage and experiments and sadness. And sometimes joy and magic. And because fuck you, that’s why.