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A review by ncrabb
The Impossible Fortress by Jason Rekulak
3.0
I wasn’t a teenager in the late ‘80s, but I was young enough and engaged enough in the time to identify with the pop culture references in this book. In fact, its poignant passages made me almost yearn for those days again in places and laugh out loud at the antics of teenage boys who were clearly products of their time. It’s May 1987 as the book opens, and Vanna White has taken the nation by storm with her appearance in “Playboy.” A couple of Billy Marvin’s friends are sure they can cash in on Vanna’s naked images if only they can get a copy of the magazine. Billy is nearly as obsessed with the magazine and its money-making potential. (They can, after all, find a Xerox color copier, copy the pictures, and sell them to other horny teens for serious money. Ah, how well we all remember the Internet-free late 1980s. (And no, CompuServe doesn’t count as the Internet.)
Billy is a natural at computer programming, and he has a snazzy Commodore 64 on his desk and a real disk drive, not a cassette tape storage system. His single mom put in lots of extra hours to get that for him.
The boys hatch a plan to steal a copy of “Playboy” from a local typewriter store. And, dressing up to look older than their 14 years, they venture forth to do just that. The heist doesn’t come off, but Billy meets a truly remarkable girl. She is Mary, and her dad owns the store. Why is she remarkable? Because, as it turns out, she writes computer code better than Billy does. He is immediately impressed. But Mary isn’t the typical slender teenage girl. Her larger-than-usual size means Billy’s friends spend a lot of time after they leave the store flinging cruel insults about her size.
Although the boys are magazine free, they urge Billy to get the store’s alarm code so they can slip in late at night and take a few copies. Billy reluctantly agrees, but as he and Mary work together at a video game they’re writing, his attraction and affection for her grows, and he’s less interested in getting the code.
But Mary has a secret that will interfere with their relationship, and Billy makes some unfortunate decisions that could irrevocably change his life. The two are working on the development of a game which they hope will win a prestigious award/scholarship and an opportunity to meet one of the ‘80s most renowned game designers.
This is a book that thoughtfully looks at the consequences of bad decisions. And it does an excellent job of bringing back memories of how life was in the late ‘80s. The author delivers those ‘80s scenes with unerring accuracy.
Billy is a natural at computer programming, and he has a snazzy Commodore 64 on his desk and a real disk drive, not a cassette tape storage system. His single mom put in lots of extra hours to get that for him.
The boys hatch a plan to steal a copy of “Playboy” from a local typewriter store. And, dressing up to look older than their 14 years, they venture forth to do just that. The heist doesn’t come off, but Billy meets a truly remarkable girl. She is Mary, and her dad owns the store. Why is she remarkable? Because, as it turns out, she writes computer code better than Billy does. He is immediately impressed. But Mary isn’t the typical slender teenage girl. Her larger-than-usual size means Billy’s friends spend a lot of time after they leave the store flinging cruel insults about her size.
Although the boys are magazine free, they urge Billy to get the store’s alarm code so they can slip in late at night and take a few copies. Billy reluctantly agrees, but as he and Mary work together at a video game they’re writing, his attraction and affection for her grows, and he’s less interested in getting the code.
But Mary has a secret that will interfere with their relationship, and Billy makes some unfortunate decisions that could irrevocably change his life. The two are working on the development of a game which they hope will win a prestigious award/scholarship and an opportunity to meet one of the ‘80s most renowned game designers.
This is a book that thoughtfully looks at the consequences of bad decisions. And it does an excellent job of bringing back memories of how life was in the late ‘80s. The author delivers those ‘80s scenes with unerring accuracy.