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A review by nobodyatall
The Alex Crow by Andrew Smith
3.0
Wifey brought this home, amongst a huge pile of other books, from the YA Literature festival. I've ignored it since then until, at a loose end for a light read, I googled some of the titles and this one was described as the "Kurt Vonnegut of YA". That was me interested...
Initially this appeared to be just a puerile string of loosely connected masturbation jokes (some of which were admittedly excellent). But by the time I'd finished it I discovered that I really cared about the characters and was quite moved by it all.
Somewhat surreal and very wanky, it's quite an enjoyable book. On the downside there are no decent female characters and certainly none with any depth (though it is set in a boys camp) and, whilst not openly sexist it doesn't really have anything positive to say about women. It's all a bit "boys being boys" banter which I was tempted to give up on a few times before my curiosity overcame me and then enough stuff happened that I started to care.
Initially this appeared to be just a puerile string of loosely connected masturbation jokes (some of which were admittedly excellent). But by the time I'd finished it I discovered that I really cared about the characters and was quite moved by it all.
Somewhat surreal and very wanky, it's quite an enjoyable book. On the downside there are no decent female characters and certainly none with any depth (though it is set in a boys camp) and, whilst not openly sexist it doesn't really have anything positive to say about women. It's all a bit "boys being boys" banter which I was tempted to give up on a few times before my curiosity overcame me and then enough stuff happened that I started to care.