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Beat The Band by Don Calame (view source)
Revision as of 10:26, 14 January 2012
, 10:26, 14 January 2012no edit summary
As much as I liked Matt, I have to say that Cooper, who's cruder, far more brazen, and at times completely obnoxious is, if anything, an even better narrator. Taking the place of Matt's horny grandfather in the crazy adult role is Coop's father, who's unemployed, has memories of his own band, and is a complete scene-stealer - an early part with him showing Cooper how to put a condom on is rather too excruciatingly hilarious to be read in public without attracting some really strange looks (as I found out to my cost on the bus into work!), while the rest of his appearances are just as fantastic. Cooper and his dad are the real stand-out characters for me, but the rest are well drawn as well, especially Helen, and Valerie (who I really loved in the earlier book.) Special mention goes to the dialogue, which is just perfect – perhaps unsurprisingly for a screenwriter, Calame captures the way teenage boys talk to each other, with virtually ever other sentence being an insult without any real meaning behind in, brilliantly.
Like ‘’Swim ''Swim The Fly’’Fly'', this is unashamedly lowbrow. In fact, I’d describe it as the written equivalent of something like ‘’American Pie’’ ''American Pie'' (still my favourite of that genre of teen comedy, so I mean that as a wholehearted compliment; I appreciate not everyone would!) Buried beneath the coarseness and vulgarity, there’s a huge heart here and the ending left me with an absolutely massive grin on my face. It also zips along at a cracking pace – so much so that I finished it in just two sittings, I was so reluctant to put it down. (It would have been one sitting but the day job got in the way!)
Extremely high recommendation to teen boys in particular. According to the author’s website, a third one – focusing on Sean – is in the works and currently set to come out in the autumn; I’ll be waiting eagerly!"
Given the subject - a teenage boy with a brain tumour - you wouldn't expect [[Henry Tumour by Anthony McGowan]] to be side-splittingly, staggeringly, funny, but believe me, it is. Like this book, though, it's also massively warm-hearted and features wonderful characters.
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