STONER & SPAZ

Boy meets girl. Boy loses girl. Boy gets girl back--a tried-and-true plot line. What makes STONER & SPAZ different is the flawed title characters. Spaz is Ben, who is marked by crippling cerebral palsy. Colleen is a stoner, living to get high. When Ben bumps into Colleen at a local cinema, a friendship, then a romance, develops, growing to reveal personalities far greater than nicknames can describe--inside or out. Telling the story from Ben's point of view, Josh Hamilton plays both characters with earnest sincerity as a young man's first experience of love outshines any found on the silver screen and a young woman's commitment to her boyfriend competes with her commitment to drugs. Koertge's keen ear for teen dialogue, aided by Hamilton's performance, makes this love story far above average. M.M.O. (c) AudioFile 2003, Portland, Maine [Published: JUN/JUL 03]