Hick
by Andrea Portes

List Price: $14.95
Pages: 265
Format: Paperback
ISBN: 1932961321
Publisher: Unbridled Books

Though its first-person narrating voice is fast-paced, powerful and unquestionably authentic, Hick is a debut novel.

Beyond this voice, what makes the book so extraordinary is that, although all of the worst things imaginable do befall this 13-year-old girl, she is never defeated by them. Luli always fights back; she always resurfaces.

Set as a coming-of-age novel, Hick tracks the real perils that modern teenagers so often face. And it does so with bright wit, energy, and an indomitable spirit.

This is a book that will grab the reader from the first page and not let go.

And it is written by a woman who is becoming a cultural force in the hippest parts of Los Angeles.

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1. How did you react, over all, to this novel? To the characters? To what happens to Luli?

2. Did you find the events of the novel and Luli’s reaction to them believable? If so why? If not, why not? If someone were to say to you that this novel “lives in the voice of Luli,” what do you think they might mean by that?

3. Did you find the book funny? If so, how would you describe the humor in it? If not, why not?

4. How would you describe the tone of the novel?

5. What are some of the themes you can identify in the novel? What elements of the novel lead you to identify those themes?

6. How does the setting of the novel interact or contribute to the themes of the novel and the way you read it?

7. How would you describe Luli to someone? Why?

8. Describe the other characters in the novel, including the minor ones, like Luli’s school teacher. How if at all do they help move the plot and expose the thematic issues in the novel? How do they contribute to the development of other characters in the novel, especially Luli?

9. How realistic or well rounded did you find the characters in the novel? Are there parts of the story that make you feel sympathetic towards Tammy and Nick? If so, what are they? What do they add to the over all richness, or not, of the narrative.

10. How would you describe the author’s apparent point of view about why people act the way they do in this world? Do you agree with her, or find it convincing? If so, why? If not, why not?

11. How do you interpret the ending, or the resolution of the novel? What are your feelings about Luli and her future? What led you to your conclusions?

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“For everyone whose childhood wasn't perfect; for everyone whose parents disappointed; for everyone whose adolescent dreams were changed or abandoned; for everyone, there's Hick by Andrea Portes. Abandoned by her parents, 13 year-old Luli decides to hitch hike to Las Vegas in search of a sugar daddy. What she finds isn't as sweet as she's imagined.”

— Keri Holmes, The Kaleidoscope Bookstore

“There probably was a time in the U.S. when parents read books to their kids at night; a time when people really cared about their neighbors and acted appropriately. Luli is America gone wrong personified. Hick is the coming of age novel for our twisted times.”

— Jeffrey A. Tipton, author of Surviving the City

"'Hick' is a bracing drama, a study in tenacity against the gnarled teeth of domestic storms."

— Los Angeles Times

“[A] chilling debut.”

— Publishers Weekly

"Reading Andrea Portes makes you feel like your elbows are damp from having been resting in beer-bottle condensation rings on a wobbly table in the kind of dive bar where sooner or later - and bet on sooner - somebody's going to have a pool cue broken over his head, and the guy wielding the cue is going to know enough to swing it from the narrow end because it's not the first time for him or, for that matter, the guy getting clocked…
Portes is the woman sitting at the table with you - young, a little drunk and too smart by three-fourths. She's reeling off a real spellbinder about a few horrific days in her grimy-blue-collar upbringing in a rural Nebraska so sere and bleak and emotionally sandblasted that it'd make an off-the-shelf trailer park look like Rancho Santa Fe. Actually it's not Portes, but Luli McMullen, the narrator of Portes' knockout - as in a right cross to the jaw - debut novel 'Hick'."

— The San Diego Union-Tribune