Line #13 Literature/Stim


1	[[quoteright:227:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/stim.jpg]]
2	''Stim'' is a series of novels by Kevin Berry. It follows Robert Barnes and Chloe Wilson, two young adults with Asperger's living in Christchurch, New Zealand, as they become roommates, deal with mental illness, and try to get through university together.
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4	The books in the series:
5	##''Stim'' (October 16, 2013)
6	##''Kaleidoscope'' (January 3, 2014)
7	----
8	!!''Stim'' contains examples of:
9	* TwentyMinutesIntoThePast: Set in 2010 and 2011, when two earthquakes struck New Zealand.
10	* TheAllegedCar: Chloe's cousin Stef, who's living with the two of them, has a car nicknamed The Frog because it's green, and because its faulty clutch causes it to hop and jump around the road. Stef manages to get it moving most of the time, despite its general poor condition.
11	* AmicableExes: [[spoiler:Chloe and Robert temporarily break up in ''Kaleidoscope''. They both keep living together with Stef, partly because they find change stressful and partly because they still enjoy each other's company even if they aren't dating. As Chloe puts it, "We've decoupled, but we haven't defriended."]]
12	* CreditCardPlot: Robert unwisely increases his dosage of antidepressants, resulting in a hypomanic episode during which he spends $4,827.75 of Chloe's money on purchases that include a moped (which promptly gets stolen). Chloe tells him her father will pay the credit card debt. [[spoiler:Luckily he also made a USD/CHF trade, which, thanks to changes in the exchange rate, results in a profit of $16,248. Chloe pays off her debt and splits the rest between herself and Robert.]]
13	* FlippingTheBird: During his hypomanic episode, Robert carelessly drives his moped and almost gets hit by a car. The driver honks. Robert flips him off and drives away.
14	* FoodSlap: While hypomanic, Robert goes to a party and hits on Teena. He thinks he's doing pretty well, until he decides to cut to the chase and asks, "[[DoYouWantToCopulate Wanna fuck?]]" She throws her coke in his face.
15	* FrightInducedBunkmate: The night after the earthquake, Chloe asks if she can sleep in Robert's bed. Her bookcase almost fell on her during the quake, and even though it's better secured now, she keeps thinking it'll fall and hit her, and she doesn't want to be alone.
16	* FurnitureBlockade: Robert is hiding in his room during a noisy house party when he learns to his horror that the guests are starting to come upstairs. Robert and Chloe block the doorknob of Robert's room with a chair and hide under the bed. Two people manage to get the door open anyway, enter the room, replace the chair under the doorknob, and then have sex on Robert's bed.
17	* HassleFreeHotwire: During Chloe's manic episode in ''Kaleidoscope'', she attempts to rob a store with a toy pistol. When the owner calls her bluff, she takes twenty seconds to hotwire his car, manages to drive it most of the way home despite the fact that she DoesNotDrive, reports the theft from a phone booth, and then walks the rest of the way home.
18	* HatesBeingNicknamed: Robert corrects anyone who calls him "Rob" or "Robbie."
19	* HomeNudist: During his episode, Robert gets home drenched from a rainstorm. He takes his wet clothes off but forgets to go upstairs to get new ones and instead stays naked in the living room, writing a letter to the Federal Reserve to tell them why their economic policies are wrong. Stef is very alarmed when she gets home.
20	* HouseRules: When Chloe and Robert play Monopoly, they add extra features to make the game more realistic, like drawing new bills to simulate inflation.
21	* ImaginaryFriend: Robert remembers that when he was a child, his best friend was an imaginary boy named Sam, who shared all his interests and provided advice for how to interact with people. His mother hated how much he talked about Sam, but she couldn't see how important he was to Robert.
22	* IncompatibleOrientation: Chloe has a crush on Cliff, a crackpot who wants to form an Aspie separatist nation and try to outbreed the neurotypicals. She stops pursuing him after Robert tells her he saw Cliff making out with Jimmy.
23	* InterruptedIntimacy: Robert goes out to dinner with Chloe. He realizes he forgot his wallet, so he runs back to get it. When he walks into the living room, he finds Stef having sex with her boyfriend Jeff. Jeff yells at him, accuses him of being a pervert, and calls him a retard, then shoves Robert and kicks him. Stef dumps Jeff for being so nasty to Robert about something that wasn't his fault.
24	* LivesInAVan: Kaperielu is a gambling addict who lives in his taxi because he couldn't pay rent.
25	* MakingLoveInAllTheWrongPlaces: In ''Kaleidoscope'', Chloe persuades Robert to have sex with her in a tree. Before they can get going, an aftershock causes them to fall out of the tree and into the river.
26	* MinorLivingAlone: When Chloe was sixteen, her father moved overseas and left her behind. Her mother was in a mental hospital, so she moved from flat to flat and worked as a waitress to pay the rent. (The age of majority in New Zealand is 18.)
27	* NoMedicationForMe: Chloe doesn't feel like herself on her bipolar medication and has been meaning to reduce it for a while. When her medication is lost in the second earthquake, she decides to go without. The result is a manic episode even worse than Robert's, and she ends up back on her medication.
28	* NonconformistDyedHair: Chloe has cobalt hair and piercings in her ears, lips, and eyebrows.
29	* PregnancyScare: In ''Kaleidoscope'', Chloe suffers nausea and worries that it's morning sickness, as she lost her contraceptive pills in the earthquake. [[spoiler:At first she thinks it might be Angelo's, until he tells her his tubes were tied. Then she goes to the doctor for a test, which comes back negative.]]
30	* SensoryOverload: Stef invites Robert to a party. He goes along so he can meet Stef's friend Teena and hopefully get laid. But when he arrives, he finds the party so loud and chaotic that he leaves after a few minutes without even seeing Teena.
31	* ShowerOfLove: [[spoiler:During Chloe's manic episode in ''Kaleidoscope'', she has sex with a man she barely knows in a public shower. After she recovers, she confesses to Robert, who breaks up with her.]]
32	* StripPoker: Robert, Chloe, Stef, and some guests play strip poker. To Robert's relief, the game ends before anyone has to take their underwear off.
33	* TheirFirstTime: While Robert and Chloe are sharing a bed after the earthquake in the first book, Chloe admits her attraction to Robert, and Robert realizes he's attracted to her too. They have clumsy, awkward sex. Robert orgasms but Chloe doesn't, and they decide to research sex to avoid that problem in the future.
34	* TropeyComeHome: Chloe's oddly-named kitten, Sex, goes missing, and the three housemates go out looking for her. Robert wanders onto a construction site, tells a policeman he was looking for Sex, and gets arrested. [[spoiler:While he's at the police station, Chloe finds Sex shut in a wardrobe.]]
35	* TroubledFetalPosition: After the earthquake, Robert and Stef find Chloe in her room, hugging her knees to her chest and rocking back and forth.
36	* VictoriasSecretCompartment: In ''Kaleidoscope'', Chloe carries her plane ticket in her bra.

Context Literature / Stim