Go Home, Ricky! is an entertaining rollercoaster of a novel that will have readers laughing along with the main character's wild antics.

Ricky Twohatchet AKA Richard Powell is an amateur wrestler who is about to get his big break before a near-career-ending injury happens in the squared circle. As Ricky begins his long journey of healing and navigates a new crisis of self-identity outside of wrestling, he's determined to finally meet his long-lost father. But not without a few bumps along the way.

As a debut novel, Gene Kwak presents a unique writing style and voice, and any wrestling fan will know that the author really knows his history. The book is quick to read and the short chapters make it easy to fly through within a day or two. I enjoyed getting to know the characters and laughed at a lot of the dialogue. The plot was well written too, but it fell a little short for me in some parts of the book. Overall, I would recommend this novel to anyone looking for a comedy, self-identity fiction, or discovering the meaning of fatherhood. I especially recommend this to adult wrestling fans for a fictional story about an amateur wrestler figuring out his life outside of the ring.

the author's style is not for me. i tried several times to get into the story but i found that it was trying a bit too hard to be gritty...

Ricky's life has been turned upside down after an accident in the wrestling ring (and thanks to his own inability to control his emotions and his mouth). He's lost his jobs, he's lost his girl, and he doesn't know what's next. Of course he does- he's going on a quest to find his father, who his mother has always claims was Jeremiah Twohatchet, an Apache. There are a lot of reasons to find Ricky annoying but keep reading and you'll find there's an interesting thread here and a big heart, Thanks to Netgalley for the ARC. I probably would not have picked this off the shelf without a prompt and that would have been a loss for me because it's a good read.

My thanks to NetGalley and the publisher The Overlook Press for an advanced copy of this fiction book.

Reviewers at newspapers of note, and literary magazines of merit when reviewing books set in the world of comic books love to add words like Biff, Bam or Holy Something in a way to act with it and at the same time above what they are writing about. That is the fact of literature that delves into the world of genre entertainment. As this is a book about wrestling, I will abstain from "Ohh Yeah" or any comments about Pythons and Brother. Or am I working the readers. Possibly.

Go Home, Ricky! by Gene Kwak might have a wrestler on the cover, and a term for bringing the match to a close in the title, but this novel is more of a book on growing up. Finally. Ricky is a wrestler just about to move up to a bigger stage, no more bar wrestling or recreation center halls for him, but his future is suddenly changed. The book is more about Ricky trying to hold on to his gimmick, what makes him a wrestler and a man, and what he needs to do to grow and move on. Everything he was, a Native American Wrestler, a father-to-be, loved, is stripped away from him leaving him lost and confused. Ricky kind of tries to roll with the forearm shots, but he can't as he has never been prepared for dealing with life without a theme song. He's not a bad guy, just kind of lazy who does stupid things not out of malice, but just because he's an unthinking jerk. Which sounds bad, but is true.

The writing is interesting, though time seems to be jumping around a lot. Things seem to happen quickly, more like the story of Job, than of a wrestling jobber. I wish he had more or a wrestling career I would have liked more on that, and I am sure that Ricky wishes the same thing, but I still enjoyed the novel. Not a Wrestlemania event kind of story, but good mid-card level tale. I would like to read more by Mr. Kwak.

This book caught me off guard, to be honest. The humor is different and reading it felt like watching a show starring Danny McBride. Our protagonist Ricky’s attempt to find the father he never knew and the relationships he has along the way were fascinating. The wrestling aspect added some humor and an interesting subplot. I find myself thinking about this one months after reading it.

Richard Powell is a high school janitor by day and a semi-professional wrestlers known as Ricky Twohatchet by night. He is on the brink of being called up to the pro wrestling big leagues when an in-ring injury puts him on the bench with a broken neck. Not only is Ricky's wrestling career over, his long-term girlfriend breaks up with him and he's out of a job. While recovering, Ricky goes on a search for his absentee father. Ricky has based his entire life--and his wrestling character--on his father's Native American identity. While searching for his biological father, Ricky is forced to grow up and face the changes that his neck injury is making to his life.

When I saw GO HOME, RICKY! on NetGalley, I was excited. A novel about professional wrestling? Tag me in! As a lifelong wrestling fan, this was a must read. I love pro wrestling so much that I'm working on a cozy mystery series staring a pro wrestler. But that is another story.

I have to admit, I was a little disappointed by the novel. The majority of the pro wrestling takes place early in the novel. There are multiple references of wrestling throughout the novel--some of those references are ones that only true wrestling fans will understand--but I was hoping for some more in-ring action. Ricky has a very unique voice, and his journey is out of the ordinary. But I found him to be a mostly unlikable character. He is a self, overgrown man-child who oddly wants to befriend some of the kids at the high school where he is a janitor. The novel is a coming of age story of a young man who is finally forced to grow up and confront reality. It was an interesting story, but I'm not sure how much Ricky grows by the end. The timeline is also very confusing. Either is takes Ricky a very long time to heal, or a lot of things happen in a very short span of time--some of which are impossible. Honestly, it was just really hard to keep track of time in the novel and that ruined some of my enjoyment.

I love to pick books that have aspects that I have never encountered before- and this was definitely one of those experiences! I loved learning about wrestling from this unique novel (my only prior book that touched on it was The Knockout Queen) and for that reason, this will be a very memorable book for me.

The pacing at time was uneven, but I think it was more than made up for with the interesting (sometimes you love them and sometimes you want to smack them) characters and the unique concept.

Thank you to Abrams Press and NetGalley for the review copy!

There’s something strangely compelling about wrestling in fiction. I’ve noticed it while reading the very excellent Gimmicks and decided to test the theory with this book. Admittedly, a considerably less excellent boo, but nevertheless the wrestling components were fun. The rest was somewhat brought down by a personal dislike of the main character, who I’m pretty sure was designed to be likeable.
Mind you, Ricky isn’t a total sh*t, he’s even mildly amusing at times, but overall he’s tediously immature, brash, foul tempered, shortfused manchild that throughout the novel is essentially dragged kicking and screaming into something resembling adulthood. Now having typed all of that up, it’s obvious he definitely has the personality for wrestling, if maybe not the discipline.
Then again, all of that is rendered irrelevant, because Ricky goes down in act one, chapter one, in fact, and stays down for the count. Temporarily disabled to a life changing degree, he can no longer wrestle or do his day job as a high school janitor, he ends his relationship with his beloved girlfriend when she very reasonably decides this isn’t the right time for them to have a child and gets an abortion and now all Ricky has is his Gilmore Girl tinged relationship with his mom, who has had him young and an absentee relationship with his father, whom Ricky has never known, but through whom he has always claimed a 50% Native American inheritance. In fact, the latter has been an indelible aspect of both Ricky’s personality and his wrestling persona. This is all despite the fact that he looks as white as wonderbread.
And then Ricky finds out that the man he has always been so proud to claim as his father might not have been that at all and begins to spiral like a top, unmoored from his personal mythology of birthright. And the novel becomes one of those…will Ricky get his sh*t together sort of things. Which, of course, he has to, more or less, to meet the classic three act literary composition.
So there you have it, a fun read, a read where the narrative is more fun than the characters, unless I’m not quite understanding or appreciative of that flat midwestern, specifically Nebraskan, mentality. A reasonably entertaining read despite its bratty lead. Something of a belated coming of age story. Reads quickly and easily. Thanks Netgalley.

Ricky is a semi-professional wrestler who must confront feelings of masculinity & inadequacy after an injury forces him to step back from the ring. Ricky was raised by his single mother, with whom he is very close, but has never met his father. Based on his mother’s stories Ricky believes himself to be half Native American and half white. But his recent injury and period of self-reflection have make Ricky want to seek out his father for himself. Ricky’s journey of healing, growth, & his quest to find his father, is truly a story of redemption and self-discovery.

What drew me to this book was the beautiful cover & the premise. A story of masculinity, redemption, identity, father and motherhood with semi-professional wrestling as the backdrop had me intrigued. However, I don’t think this story was for me personally.

Let me preface this by saying there’s certainly nothing bad here. It’s an interesting, creative story with colorful, rich characters. The dialogue is funny and the character representations are realistic. However, there just wasn’t anything that specifically resonated with me. The themes introduced in the novel are big ones, but at times it seemed that the themes were competing. That is to say, I feel like some topics were not explored to the fullest extent. The pace was a bit slow for me as well, but that may be because of how I was personally reading and interpreting the story.

Overall this is definitely worth a read, especially if you’re looking to explore a different and unique setting and storyline.