"Stoked!", by Bill Morris

A review by Daniel Hinojosa

Minor spoilers possible. If you haven't read Stoked! and plan to do so, move on to the next article... NOW!

*Final Spoiler Alert*

Well, I finished Stoked! last week. I decided to put a review here in alt.surfing. I'm cc'ing Bill (Morris) too.

I really liked Stoked!, but it has left me with a feeling of which I'm not quite sure.

It had some great funny parts. I especially liked the part where the hero, Bill, goes to get a wet-suit; The guy gives him wax for his stick, he gets totally confused, and barked at. I re-read that section a couple of times just to arf myself!

However, I don't much care for violence. It is a truism of surfing that this occasionally happens (e.g., the Oxbow incident). This book had some. In the end, it really surprised me. I was sad to see some of the 'other' heroes in the book get it. I guess that maybe that is a good sign, or a good thing for a book to do though. A good book anyway.

The heart of what it had to say, about surfing, truly rang true for me though. In the book, Bill comes to see surfing as a way out. Now, maybe it really wasn't, but the feelings and how they were detailed were right on. Some of the personalities were ones I recognize from when I grew up surfing. I guess these are universal to surfing...

So, I loved Stoked! it exposed the heart of why many of us surf. Thanks for the story Bill. I look forward to the sequel!

Daniel Hinojosa