Bitter Sixteen by Stefan Mohamed
Mar. 25th, 2016 11:33 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
quippeThe Blurb On The Back:
”Happy birthday, Stanly. We hope you like your present …”
Cynical, solitary Stanly Bird is a fairly typical teenager – unless you count the fact that his best friend is a talking beagle named Daryl, and that he gained the powers of flight and telekinesis when he turned sixteen.
Unfortunately, his rural Welsh home town is not exactly crying out for its very own superhero. London is calling – but what Stanly finds there is a good deal weirder and more terrifying than anything he could have imagined. Perhaps he should have stayed in Wales …
Stanly Bird is a cynical teenager who lives in the Welsh village of Tref-y-Celwyn. His parents are worried by his refusal to socialise and the fact that his best friend is a talking beagle called Darryl. They’d be even more worried if they knew that on his sixteenth birthday he spontaneously developed the powers of flight and telekinesis.
Stanly’s attempts to come to terms with his new abilities coincide with his drama teacher deciding to coax him out of his shell by casting him as Romeo in a school production of Romeo and Juliet. This brings Stanly into conflict with Ben, a privileged kid who knows that Stanly fancies Kloe, the pretty, popular girl cast as Juliet and can’t handle the fact that Kloe seems to fancy him back. The fallout drives Stanly and Darryl to London where he discovers that he’s not the only person in the world with strange powers and that there are other things out there that are more sinister than he could imagine – things that need a hero to stop them.
Stefan Mohamed’s debut YA fantasy (the first in a trilogy) has a great first person voice, a lot of humour and an interesting take on the superhero genre but the story really sags in places and the meaty action doesn’t get started until the final quarter and is rather rushed. This is a shame because there is a lot to like in this book. Stanly’s a great character and I loved his sense of humour, his self-awareness and his friendship with Darryl (which revolves around a mutual love of classic movies) – in fact I really wanted more of him and Darryl, who’s treated completely normally despite being a talking dog and less of Kloe as it plays out like any other stereotypical romance. The big problem is the pacing – the first half of the book is basically set-up and entertaining though it is, I kept waiting for the main action, which doesn’t come until Stanly moves to London. I wanted more of the other powered people and their relationship, the sinister group monitoring them and definitely more about the sinister creatures they battle – what there is is rushed and at times, muddled. Ultimately there’s more enough here for me to want to read the next in the trilogy but I’m hoping for more action and development in the plot.
The Verdict:
Stefan Mohamed’s debut YA fantasy (the first in a trilogy) has a great first person voice, a lot of humour and an interesting take on the superhero genre but the story really sags in places and the meaty action doesn’t get started until the final quarter and is rather rushed. This is a shame because there is a lot to like in this book. Stanly’s a great character and I loved his sense of humour, his self-awareness and his friendship with Darryl (which revolves around a mutual love of classic movies) – in fact I really wanted more of him and Darryl, who’s treated completely normally despite being a talking dog and less of Kloe as it plays out like any other stereotypical romance. The big problem is the pacing – the first half of the book is basically set-up and entertaining though it is, I kept waiting for the main action, which doesn’t come until Stanly moves to London. I wanted more of the other powered people and their relationship, the sinister group monitoring them and definitely more about the sinister creatures they battle – what there is is rushed and at times, muddled. Ultimately there’s more enough here for me to want to read the next in the trilogy but I’m hoping for more action and development in the plot.
Cynical, solitary Stanly Bird is a fairly typical teenager – unless you count the fact that his best friend is a talking beagle named Daryl, and that he gained the powers of flight and telekinesis when he turned sixteen.
Unfortunately, his rural Welsh home town is not exactly crying out for its very own superhero. London is calling – but what Stanly finds there is a good deal weirder and more terrifying than anything he could have imagined. Perhaps he should have stayed in Wales …
Stanly Bird is a cynical teenager who lives in the Welsh village of Tref-y-Celwyn. His parents are worried by his refusal to socialise and the fact that his best friend is a talking beagle called Darryl. They’d be even more worried if they knew that on his sixteenth birthday he spontaneously developed the powers of flight and telekinesis.
Stanly’s attempts to come to terms with his new abilities coincide with his drama teacher deciding to coax him out of his shell by casting him as Romeo in a school production of Romeo and Juliet. This brings Stanly into conflict with Ben, a privileged kid who knows that Stanly fancies Kloe, the pretty, popular girl cast as Juliet and can’t handle the fact that Kloe seems to fancy him back. The fallout drives Stanly and Darryl to London where he discovers that he’s not the only person in the world with strange powers and that there are other things out there that are more sinister than he could imagine – things that need a hero to stop them.
Stefan Mohamed’s debut YA fantasy (the first in a trilogy) has a great first person voice, a lot of humour and an interesting take on the superhero genre but the story really sags in places and the meaty action doesn’t get started until the final quarter and is rather rushed. This is a shame because there is a lot to like in this book. Stanly’s a great character and I loved his sense of humour, his self-awareness and his friendship with Darryl (which revolves around a mutual love of classic movies) – in fact I really wanted more of him and Darryl, who’s treated completely normally despite being a talking dog and less of Kloe as it plays out like any other stereotypical romance. The big problem is the pacing – the first half of the book is basically set-up and entertaining though it is, I kept waiting for the main action, which doesn’t come until Stanly moves to London. I wanted more of the other powered people and their relationship, the sinister group monitoring them and definitely more about the sinister creatures they battle – what there is is rushed and at times, muddled. Ultimately there’s more enough here for me to want to read the next in the trilogy but I’m hoping for more action and development in the plot.
The Verdict:
Stefan Mohamed’s debut YA fantasy (the first in a trilogy) has a great first person voice, a lot of humour and an interesting take on the superhero genre but the story really sags in places and the meaty action doesn’t get started until the final quarter and is rather rushed. This is a shame because there is a lot to like in this book. Stanly’s a great character and I loved his sense of humour, his self-awareness and his friendship with Darryl (which revolves around a mutual love of classic movies) – in fact I really wanted more of him and Darryl, who’s treated completely normally despite being a talking dog and less of Kloe as it plays out like any other stereotypical romance. The big problem is the pacing – the first half of the book is basically set-up and entertaining though it is, I kept waiting for the main action, which doesn’t come until Stanly moves to London. I wanted more of the other powered people and their relationship, the sinister group monitoring them and definitely more about the sinister creatures they battle – what there is is rushed and at times, muddled. Ultimately there’s more enough here for me to want to read the next in the trilogy but I’m hoping for more action and development in the plot.
