Minxminnie
20th October 2011, 09:19 PM
This book reminded me initially a lot of a few different books : a bit of The Curious Incident ..., a bit of Room, and a bit - though I've never read it - of The Lovely Bones. It seems to be the next big thing in CYA to some extent - I got it via an Amazon recommendation.
Jamie is ten, and has recently moved to the Lake District with his dad and 15yo sister, whose twin, Rose, died five years ago in a bombing by Islamic fundamentalists. The parents are still devastated by their loss, and have just separated, the mum having met someone knew at her bereavement counselling group, the dad having taken to drink. Jamie, on the other hand, was too young when his sister was killed, and he really doesn't feel the grief which the rest of the family feels: when he was asked to write about a special person at school, he horrified his mother by writing not about Rose but about Wayne Rooney.
The novel is told in Jamie's voice, following his experiences in his new home as his dad fails as a parent and he misses his mum. The voice is very fresh and bleakly funny - this is him remembering his father confronting his mother about her affair at a family party:
Mum sank into a chair right by the sandwiches, which I thought was clever 'cos she'd have first choice of the sandwich fillings.
At his new school, he is picked on pretty brutally, his only friend being a Muslim girl, Sunya - making his life a bit difficult given his father's attitude to Islam after the death of his daughter.
The voice was very convincing, and the novel deals well with big issues like grief and bullying without lapsing into moralising or sentimentality, mainly through presenting it in Jamie's matter of fact way - it made me think about the way that, when you're a kid, you think whatever is happening to you is normal.
I have a few grumbles with the book, given the praise that seems to have been lavished on it. I'll need to put them in spoilers as they do relate to the way the story develops.
Is it really believable that a ten year old boy would wear the Spiderman T Shirt for so long without washing it - or that anyone would let him? Even when it has the blood of the dead cat on it - by which time his dad has come to his senses? Even if he thought it was ok, and there was no-one at home telling him any different, I'd think someone at school would raise the alarm. And this extreme childishness seemed to conflict with his slightly precocious feelings for Sunya. And - I'm being picky here - but would the school let Jamie or Daniel stay in school after been beaten up? The violence and vindictive nature of the bullying shocked me, as well as the apparent blind eye turned by a small village primary school. And - one last thing - don't Muslim girls start wearing the hijab as adolescents? I could be wrong there.
Some of these things just created an unevenness in the character. I've read that Pitcher wrote the book while travelling, and I thought that it just needed a bit of ironing out in places.
Jamie is ten, and has recently moved to the Lake District with his dad and 15yo sister, whose twin, Rose, died five years ago in a bombing by Islamic fundamentalists. The parents are still devastated by their loss, and have just separated, the mum having met someone knew at her bereavement counselling group, the dad having taken to drink. Jamie, on the other hand, was too young when his sister was killed, and he really doesn't feel the grief which the rest of the family feels: when he was asked to write about a special person at school, he horrified his mother by writing not about Rose but about Wayne Rooney.
The novel is told in Jamie's voice, following his experiences in his new home as his dad fails as a parent and he misses his mum. The voice is very fresh and bleakly funny - this is him remembering his father confronting his mother about her affair at a family party:
Mum sank into a chair right by the sandwiches, which I thought was clever 'cos she'd have first choice of the sandwich fillings.
At his new school, he is picked on pretty brutally, his only friend being a Muslim girl, Sunya - making his life a bit difficult given his father's attitude to Islam after the death of his daughter.
The voice was very convincing, and the novel deals well with big issues like grief and bullying without lapsing into moralising or sentimentality, mainly through presenting it in Jamie's matter of fact way - it made me think about the way that, when you're a kid, you think whatever is happening to you is normal.
I have a few grumbles with the book, given the praise that seems to have been lavished on it. I'll need to put them in spoilers as they do relate to the way the story develops.
Is it really believable that a ten year old boy would wear the Spiderman T Shirt for so long without washing it - or that anyone would let him? Even when it has the blood of the dead cat on it - by which time his dad has come to his senses? Even if he thought it was ok, and there was no-one at home telling him any different, I'd think someone at school would raise the alarm. And this extreme childishness seemed to conflict with his slightly precocious feelings for Sunya. And - I'm being picky here - but would the school let Jamie or Daniel stay in school after been beaten up? The violence and vindictive nature of the bullying shocked me, as well as the apparent blind eye turned by a small village primary school. And - one last thing - don't Muslim girls start wearing the hijab as adolescents? I could be wrong there.
Some of these things just created an unevenness in the character. I've read that Pitcher wrote the book while travelling, and I thought that it just needed a bit of ironing out in places.