Teen/YA: August 2006 Archives

“They go all sniffy and hurt. ‘We’re not losers,’ they bleat, ‘We’re just different from you.’”

Something of an egotist and concerned to the point of preoccupation with his appearance and the way others perceive him, John Blue is scathing about his brother Dane and his friend Lee, dubbed the two cheeses, Dane-ish Blue and Dairy Lee – because his presence is somewhat unfortunately accompanied by a stale, milky sweat smell.

Dane and Lee are huge fans of Star Wars and so, on learning about the ‘BIGGEST MEETING IN THE HISTORY OF THE GALAXY’ due to be held in New York, are keen to attend the convention. Plans are scuppered, however, as the pair do not have the money to enable this, having spent it all on Star Wars toys, costumes and other paraphernalia.

John Blue is a guitarist in a fairly ineffectual band. Sibling rivalry and disdain for his brother cause him at ever-increasing intervals to make an ‘L’ shape with his finger and thumb against his forehead whilst chanting L-L-L-Loser. This becomes a line of a song that he creates a killer riff to go around!

What happens from hereonin brings Lee and Dane the possibility of fame and indeed fortune. They turn this down handing the opportunity to John Blue whose very perfection and conformity fail to make it viable. Money is still to be made, however, and Dane and Lee prove to be far more astute than John has given them credit for. Breaking down the stereotypes and ease of assumption that might be made about the pair...

Here is a book all self-respecting teenagers could feel proud to be caught perusing, this is testament to the high production values and the quality of writing Barrington Stoke titles embrace. A short and sassy book with Catherine Forde’s ear for teenage idiom and demotic makes for a convincing read.

“You can’t fight against men like Jack Taylor. They never lose. I tried telling your dad that, but he wouldn’t listen. And look what happened to him. I didn’t want anything to happen to you.”

The subject of a vicious murder instigated by the command of Jack Taylor, the death of Johnny Delgado’s father has left questions for which Johnny is determined, regardless of personal cost, to uncover answers…

Investigations are driven by Johnny's tense, nervous energy, carried out against an increasingly tumultuous backdrop of gangland violence and war-fare that is instigated by Taylor himself, who presides over the estates as gangland baron. The revelations Johnny makes lead him directly to Taylor and so threaten to endanger his sphere of family and of friends.

The novel concludes with a highly dramatic, classic and beautifully realised show-down on the top of the block of flats where Johnny and his mother live. The covering of snow adds depth and atmosphere to this gripping finale which is reminiscent of Joyce’s “The Dead” in its frost-atrophied ending.