Hello Darkness by Anthony McGowan
Mar. 23rd, 2014 11:25 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
quippeThe Blurb On The Back:
”Stealthy, furtive, unhurried yet urgent … In a few seconds of efficient butchery, the chickens are dead and dismembered.”
Someone is on a killing spree – slaughtering the school pets with a cold-blooded savagery. The number-one suspect is Johnny Middleton.
Johnny’s had problems in the past, but they’re behind him now. So what if he still sees the world a little differently? He’s not crazy and he’s not a killer.
And he’s going to prove it.
Johnny Middleton had an incident several months ago. Everyone in school knows about it. He’s okay now - so long as he takes his pills – but most people leave him alone. So when someone starts killing the school pets, Johnny’s the number one suspect. He’s got 4 days to find the culprit or the deputy headmaster will cancel the school production of The Wizard of Oz (guaranteeing that the Drama Queens will make him wish he was dead). But someone’s setting up Johnny as the patsy and as more animals are brutally killed, he finds allies are short on the ground. If it wasn’t for a talking cat, he’d be completely alone …
Anthony McGowan’s unique YA novel is like BRICK meets CHINATOWN and BUGSY MALONE with a hint of NAKED LUNCH and a sense of humour. It’s a funny, distinctive noir with an unreliable narrator and a bizarre take on the different school factions and comes complete the obligatory femme fatale. The only thing is I can’t decide is whether I loved or hated the ending. On one level, it’s completely in keeping with the rest of the novel, yet at the same time it’s completely infuriating. Don’t let that put you off though because this is an utterly distinctive, engaging book that’s unlike anything else on the YA bookshelves. For that reason alone, it’s well worth a couple of hours of your time.
Johnny is a unique character. I loved the smart, knowing noir voice that McGowan gives him and the way he easily drops the reader into the slightly bizarre set up of his school with its internal politics and inter-gang warfare. At the same time, the reader recognises Johnny’s emotional vulnerability, even if he doesn’t. Left alone by his parents, he has no real friends to help him through this. His ex-girlfriend has taken up with a group keen to keep him away from her and the rest of the school is quick to blame him for the animal killings due to his psychiatric history. While you never find out what happened to him, there’s enough information to make an educated guess, which makes his developing relationship with the talking cat and the deputy head’s daughter all the more moving.
I can guarantee that you won’t read another YA book like this one and for that reason alone, I definitely recommend checking it out.
The Verdict:
Anthony McGowan’s unique YA novel is like BRICK meets CHINATOWN and BUGSY MALONE with a hint of NAKED LUNCH and a sense of humour. It’s a funny, distinctive noir with an unreliable narrator and a bizarre take on the different school factions and comes complete the obligatory femme fatale. The only thing is I can’t decide is whether I loved or hated the ending. On one level, it’s completely in keeping with the rest of the novel, yet at the same time it’s completely infuriating. Don’t let that put you off though because this is an utterly distinctive, engaging book that’s unlike anything else on the YA bookshelves. For that reason alone, it’s well worth a couple of hours of your time.
Thanks to Walker Books for the free copy of this book.
Someone is on a killing spree – slaughtering the school pets with a cold-blooded savagery. The number-one suspect is Johnny Middleton.
Johnny’s had problems in the past, but they’re behind him now. So what if he still sees the world a little differently? He’s not crazy and he’s not a killer.
And he’s going to prove it.
Johnny Middleton had an incident several months ago. Everyone in school knows about it. He’s okay now - so long as he takes his pills – but most people leave him alone. So when someone starts killing the school pets, Johnny’s the number one suspect. He’s got 4 days to find the culprit or the deputy headmaster will cancel the school production of The Wizard of Oz (guaranteeing that the Drama Queens will make him wish he was dead). But someone’s setting up Johnny as the patsy and as more animals are brutally killed, he finds allies are short on the ground. If it wasn’t for a talking cat, he’d be completely alone …
Anthony McGowan’s unique YA novel is like BRICK meets CHINATOWN and BUGSY MALONE with a hint of NAKED LUNCH and a sense of humour. It’s a funny, distinctive noir with an unreliable narrator and a bizarre take on the different school factions and comes complete the obligatory femme fatale. The only thing is I can’t decide is whether I loved or hated the ending. On one level, it’s completely in keeping with the rest of the novel, yet at the same time it’s completely infuriating. Don’t let that put you off though because this is an utterly distinctive, engaging book that’s unlike anything else on the YA bookshelves. For that reason alone, it’s well worth a couple of hours of your time.
Johnny is a unique character. I loved the smart, knowing noir voice that McGowan gives him and the way he easily drops the reader into the slightly bizarre set up of his school with its internal politics and inter-gang warfare. At the same time, the reader recognises Johnny’s emotional vulnerability, even if he doesn’t. Left alone by his parents, he has no real friends to help him through this. His ex-girlfriend has taken up with a group keen to keep him away from her and the rest of the school is quick to blame him for the animal killings due to his psychiatric history. While you never find out what happened to him, there’s enough information to make an educated guess, which makes his developing relationship with the talking cat and the deputy head’s daughter all the more moving.
I can guarantee that you won’t read another YA book like this one and for that reason alone, I definitely recommend checking it out.
The Verdict:
Anthony McGowan’s unique YA novel is like BRICK meets CHINATOWN and BUGSY MALONE with a hint of NAKED LUNCH and a sense of humour. It’s a funny, distinctive noir with an unreliable narrator and a bizarre take on the different school factions and comes complete the obligatory femme fatale. The only thing is I can’t decide is whether I loved or hated the ending. On one level, it’s completely in keeping with the rest of the novel, yet at the same time it’s completely infuriating. Don’t let that put you off though because this is an utterly distinctive, engaging book that’s unlike anything else on the YA bookshelves. For that reason alone, it’s well worth a couple of hours of your time.
Thanks to Walker Books for the free copy of this book.
