The Kids Aren't Alright

I have met Holly Howitt. She is lovely, gorgeous, funny, friendly, witty (I could go on).

Where on earth this book of hers came from I have no idea.

It is one of the most dark, disturbing and shocking novels I have read in a long time.

Nick is a teenage boy with problems: his elder brother has been in a coma for three years; his mother has become addicted to the sleeping pills she takes to cope with the strain; his father is out working much of the time; and he is experiencing the deep sexual frustrations that all boys his age have to deal with.

I think it is fair to say that he does not manage things well.

Blokes will rarely admit this but during adolescence we think some really fucked up stuff, much of it born of confusion and the aforementioned frustration as we come to terms with our sexuality, whatever that may be. For most of us this manifests itself through a series of 'long showers', experiments with the various balms and balsams found in the bathroom cabinet and bedroom floors festooned with used tissues. But for some this period can have a more destructive and violent effect, and that is what happens with Nick.

Holly convincingly gets inside the head of this disturbed individual. It is a remarkable piece of literary ventriloquism. At first he seems to be a just a sexually frustrated young chap and the author shares his uncensored thoughts with the reader. These are explicit in the extreme but are the sort of things that teenage boys think. As the story continues, however, we find that Nick is likely to act upon these impulses. Perhaps he already has.

The Schoolboy is a book that many people will find hard to read. I don't believe it is deliberately shocking, it is not gratuitous in any way, but it is properly disturbing and that will bother some readers. I couldn't help but be impressed.

It isn't perfect, I found the intervention of a teacher towards the end of the book to be a step too far and I wasn't quite able to suspend my disbelief at that point, but that doesn't stop it from being an extremely powerful novel, the sort of thing that you would expect Canongate, Fourth Estate or Picador to pay a fortune for and publish in a blaze of publicity.

As it is, it is published by a small Welsh press who have an impressive list but obviously not the same sort of clout with London's literati. Unfortunately, and I hate to point this out but it has to be said, they have given it a truly awful cover which would stop many people from picking it up and probably many bookshops from stocking it. That is a real shame as this is a book that would blow many readers away and that I am sure none of them would forget.

I certainly won't.

Comments

[Hazel]

I agree about the cover. Reading your review, I kept glancing at the cover thinking "when is Scott going to mention that this is a self-published/vanity press book?" And you didn't. Terrible cover and I am not sure that your recommendation is enough to get me to overlook the cover!

[Barley]

Wish you hadn't written what author looks like in first line of this. Is it not totally immaterial? It's actually a little demeaning. Book sounds fascinating, but first line makes good review sound as if based more on a crush with author than valid literary criticism.

[Scott Pack]

I try to be honest with my reviews Barley, however that makes me look. My genuine response to this book was surprise that someone who struck me in one way in person delivered a book that hit me in a markedly different way when I sat down to read it. I think that is pretty valid.

Although I would never claim that anything on here comes close to literary criticism. I just ramble on about books.

[Ray]

I'm only going to buy it cos you said she's fit!

[Barley]

Sorry Scott but I don't think that it is valid. I think it wouldn't be valid if she was ugly, and it's not valid if she's "gorgeous", as you say. Being a woman writing an authentic teenage male voice would be valid on itself, so maybe that's what you meant?

I enjoy your reviews a lot, and they have helped me find a lot of books I've loved. This account of the authors looks just demeaned this review a bit for me and actually put me off the book a bit. Though not as much as the cover, as others have mentioned!

[Scott Pack]

We'll have to agree to disagree. I try to write my reviews as if I were rabbiting on in front of you and I would definitely have said the same thing in those circumstances. Sorry if it put you off. The author didn't seem to mind.

[alex]

Lighten up folks, this is a post about a book which includes a throwaway comment which consists of far less than 1% of what he says about the work. I'm as politcally correct as the next person but this is hardly something to get all fussed up about

[Sue Cook]

Have you seen the Twitter page of @DonovanCreed , who is the "How I Sold 1 Million eBooks in 5 Months" guy, John Locke? His Twitter page background, presumably selected from twitterbackgrounds.com, is almost identical to the aforementioned awful book cover. Just thought I'd mention...
Still weighing up whether to buy Holly's book and depress myself or not. Probably not.