GUEST REVIEW: Boy21 - Matthew Quick

PAGES: 288
PUBLISHER: Headline
FORMAT: Paperback
BUY IT: Waterstones
RATING: 5 Stars

SUMMARY

Basketball has always been an escape for Finley. He lives in gray, broken Bellmont, a town ruled by the Irish Mob, drugs, violence, and racially charged rivalries. At home, he takes care of his disabled grandfather, and at school he’s called “White Rabbit”, the only white kid on the varsity basketball team. He’s always dreamed of getting out somehow with his girlfriend, Erin. But until then, when he puts on his number 21, everything seems to make sense.

Russ has just moved to the neighborhood. A former teen basketball phenom from a privileged home, his life has been turned upside down by tragedy. Cut off from everyone he knows, he now answers only to the name Boy21—his former jersey number—and has an unusual obsession with outer space.

As their final year of high school brings these two boys together, “Boy21” may turn out to be the answer they both need.

REVIEW

Recently, I was lucky enough to read Boy21 by Matthew Quick and I loved it. This book is set to be released on the 19th June and I recieved it via headline and bookbridgr so thank you very much. This book follows Finley, who doesn’t live a perfect life. His home life and his past aren’t the best and he lives in a terrible neighbourhood. But he keeps going because of his girlfriend Erin and his love for basketball. Then a guy called Russ arrives in his life and he’s a bit strange. He answers only to Boy21 and he claims to be from outer space. Russ is also one of the best high-school basketball players in the country and could easily take Finley’s place on the team. However against the odds, Russ and Finley become friends and they help each other out when dealing with their pasts and their futures. I honestly really loved this book as a whole and I really recommend it.

This is the second Matthew Quick novel I’ve read, the first being Forgive Me, Leonard Peacock (click here to read my review of it) and I absolutely love his writing. Matthew Quick deals with a lot of big issues in his novels and even though they are dark and intense subjects, he still makes you laugh a lot. His writing makes you want to keep reading, which hardly happens for me when it comes to contemporary novels. I really want to read his other books now and there is a chance he could make it on to my list of favourite authors.

Finley was a great main character. He had issues yet I loved that about him. He never annoyed me or irritated me. I understood all of his decisions and I really sympathized with him. Russ was also a great character. He was odd and unusual and I didn’t understand him at first but as we got to know more about him, I really did care for him a lot. Their friendship was absolutely beautiful and reminded me a lot of Sam and Davey’s friendship in Cloud Busting by Malorie Blackman, which was my favourite book when I was younger. I also really loved most of the secondary characters including Erin, Coach and Wes.

I loved the whole Harry Potter book club thing that Wes, Russ and Finley started. They mentioned Harry Potter in the second half of the novel to compare their lives and I loved that. When they talked about escaping, they said that they were going to Hogwarts. Hogwarts had always been some what of an escape for me and I loved that a lot.

As I said earlier, Matthew Quick touches on a lot of dark subjects and issues in this book but I won’t tell you what they are because it’s best to not know what they are. Even though they were dark subjects, I still felt myself laughing and smiling throughout the book which is a unique thing that Matthew Quick can do. I honestly recommend this book to everyone as well as Forgive Me, Leonard Peacock because the writing is superb. This book is a solid 4.5 stars for me and the only thing that stopped me from giving it 5 stars was the ending. I really did love the ending, but I wanted more! I wanted to know what happens afterwards! This is a definitely a book that you should all be going out and buying on the 19th June because its fabulous. I’m going to leave you with one of my favourite quotes from this book because I don’t know why but this quote really stuck out for me:

“You don’t always get to pick the role you’e going to play in life, but it’s good to play whatever role you got the best way you can.”

Thanks for reading and definitely go get this book as soon as possible.

- Sofia.
(fifisofa.wordpress.com)

Coming in June

Here's your lot for June - an absolute shed load of fantastic new titles! Everything listed is available in store so pop in and have a browse! You can click on the picture to read the blurb for each one. So - what takes your fancy? 

If you're viewing this after the publication dates you can Reserve and Collect the title through waterstones.com, selection 'Birmingham High Street'. If you have reviewed any of these titles and want to share it on our blog, you can email it to us here.

  

  

GUEST REVIEW: Forgive Me, Leonard Peacock - Matthew Quick

PAGES: 288
PUBLISHER: Headline
FORMAT: Paperback
BUY IT: Waterstones
RATING: 4 Stars

SUMMARY

How would you spend your birthday if you knew it would be your last? Eighteen-year-old Leonard Peacock knows exactly what he'll do. He'll say goodbye. Not to his mum - who he calls Linda because it annoys her - who's moved out and left him to fend for himself. Nor to his former best friend, whose torments have driven him to consider committing the unthinkable. But to his four friends: a Humphrey-Bogart-obsessed neighbour, a teenage violin virtuoso, a pastor's daughter and a teacher. Most of the time, Leonard believes he's weird and sad but these friends have made him think that maybe he's not. He wants to thank them, and say goodbye.

REVIEW

Hey guys! Today, I’m going to be reviewing Forgive Me, Leonard Peacock by Matthew Quick. This was the first Matthew Quick book I read but I absolutely adored it! I will definitely be picking up The Silver Linings Playbook as soon as I can. Now let’s start with the overall non-spoiler review.

Going into this book after having read the summary, I was expecting it to be very depressing and at parts it was. However, the book as a whole was funny. Leonard was an amazing narrator with a lot of character and I really cared for him. This book focused on him and I loved that. It was weird to be in the mind of someone who wanted to commit suicide but I feel like this book made me more aware of the issue and made me aware that what I can do can affect someone a lot and I hope I never be mean to anyone in the way that some of the classmates were to Leonard. The supporting characters weren’t as well developed however except for Lauren and Herr Silverman. I wish we would have seen more of Walt or Baback. I also wish that we would have got to seen his mother a little bit more, I would have liked to see them happy at the end.

This book deals with a lot of major issues that we are all aware of but try to hide and I loved that. We try to disguise all the problems that teenagers go through but this book handled them straight on. This allowed us to see these issues first hand and in some way, feel what it’s like to go through them. It allowed us to see why people want to commit suicide and what happens to people who go through traumatizing events. Matthew Quick write brilliantly and it felt as if he really knew about the subjects in hisbook.The thing about this book is that Leonard is doing something that none of us really like and we don’t like to know about it but when you’re in his head, you can see where he’s coming from and why he wants to do that. It’s a scary thought but you start to understand why people commit suicide.

This book was slow to start with and I found the writing style to be odd to start with. The book had footnotes! Having read mainly YA, I’ve never really come across footnotes in books that I read for pleasure. Once you get into the book, however it will grip you and you will fall in love with Matthew Quick’s writing. I sure did!

Overall, I’d give this book 4 stars as I did really enjoy it but I just can’t bring myself to give it 5 stars, because it wasn’t one of my absolute favourites. I do however recommend it to anyone and everyone! This book will really help you to understand the problems many young teenagers go through.

- Sofia.

http://fifisofa.wordpress.com/