[Following is a volunteer review of "A Bloody Book" by Chris Bowen.] 📷2 out of 4 stars.Share This Review:
Chris Bowen made full use of reader identification in the novel , ‘A bloody book’. I do not know whether it is because I am a student and can easily relate to the characters or the authors use of humor.
I appreciated that in the preface, immediately Bowen explains the title of the novel to create a boundary between it’s message and it’s interpretation. Although there is no blood and gore, the story does have a gruesome twist. The mantra included in the preface deemed true in the end, well to me. I really did ‘start for the story-cared for the characters-stayed for the twist’.
The novel is told in the first-person from the perspective of an eight grader, so the reader will face colloquialisms, vulgarisms and slang terms such as ‘darn’ or ‘gonna’. To further indulge the reader into the mind of a teenager, it also talks about adults and their mannerisms and teachers too. Referring to adults in discussion as ‘adult talk’, and pointing out small mistakes they do and sort of journaling on how they can become honest adults.
Bowen explains that the story was first an assignment he never did in middle school. What’s funny is, the day I started reading the book I had a school assignment to do. I could relate to a lot , for example, the hooliganism of classmates and the constant struggle of teachers trying to finish a lesson. I'd rate this book, 2 out of 4 stars . Only because no book is perfect and the twist left me hanging in the end. I’m not a fan of cliff-hangers, but this one made sense.
It made me walk into class the next day with a different mindset. Questioning the actions of students around me , I started to notice small things. Why was the girl with the loud voice always acting out all the time, was she undergoing an unstable home environment? Why did the boys bunk class to be red-eyed at the end of the day? Teachers were starting to leave, was it because the pupils kept getting worse each year? The novel provides food for thought.
I never really enjoyed stories with the first person narrative, it’s very limiting to where the reader can only experience the story from one character’s eyes. But the positive is, the narrative never becomes self-indulgent in their own emotions. And the character does face some turmoil, even as an adolescent the typical stereotype isn’t seen in the novel. I’d recommend this to another student like my classmate , especially because we got into the topic of hooliganism at school so this would provide them with a different perspective.
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