Henry Tumour by Anthony McGowan
Mar. 8th, 2008 02:00 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
quippeThe Blurb On The Back:
As if school bullies and his mum's tofu sandwiches weren't enough for Hector Brunty, he now has another dilemma: a talking brain tumour.
Henry Tumour turns out to be the perfect alter-ego, advising Hector on haircuts, high-fashion, and tactics for snogging the best-looking girl in school. Controlling his speech and brain chemicals is quite enough, but soon Henry Tumour is trying to make more decisions about Hector's life than he'd like.
Can Hector overpower his tumour in order to get what he really wants ... before they both go under the knife?
This is a brilliantly imaginative book, wonderfully told in the first person that deals with a serious subject matter in a way that makes you laugh out loud.
I thought that Anthony McGowan's Hector was a terrific narrator - a geeky schoolboy interested in the Justice League and Star Trek with a nice-but-vague hippy mother wih a valium addiction and a social conscience she's trying to pass on to her son. The narrative voice is pitch-perfect but McGowan adds to it by making the brain tumour a character in his own right who comments on Hector's story. Henry Tumour is the kind of boy that Hector perhaps wishes he could be - with a highly defined sense of fashion, nerves of steel and low animal cunning, he can advise Hector on how to avoid and best the bullying Tierney and his cronies but is also much more obsessed with sex than Hector is, encouraging him to pursue the school goddess, Uma Upshaw, rather than Amanda Something who has a wine-stain birthmark on her face but who Hector feels more drawn to.
There's a great deal of humour in the book, and whilst the knob jokes and sex gags won't be for everyone, I have to admit that I did chuckle many times. As a note for parents, McGowan does use the f-word several times during the story, which may not make this appropriate for younger readers. He also isn't afraid to show the cruelty of the school playground or school bullies and I did shudder at one scene towards the end involving Flaherty (a kid whose dad is a well known local criminal and hard man) as it's uncomfortable reading. My biggest nitpick is that the final confrontation between Hector and Tierney didn't quite convince me, not least because it relies on Tierney not knowing something that I really felt he would know.
What's interesting is that McGowan handles the way in which brain tumours can affect personality and behaviour in a way that shows how serious they are (e.g. he shows Hector being sick and passing out and his fear at what is going to happen to him), whilst keeping it interesting and humourous. You finish the book almost feeling sad about what's going to happen to Henry and worried about what will happen to Hector but at the same time you don't pity Hector for his plight. It's possible that some people will read this and think that it doesn't take cancer as seriously as it perhaps ought to, but for me the point of the book is to show that being a teenager with brain cancer doesn't have to mean the end of your life and in Hector's case, it actually helps him to take control of his life and stop worrying about what his schoolmates think.
The final thing I'd like to say is that I really admired the way in which the book is set out. McGowan incorporates graphic novel artwork and script-layout to help tell the story and whilst this could have been distracting in the hands of a lesser writer, I found that it kept me completely hooked. It's definitely worth giving to a teenage boy who wouldn't normally be keen to read books because I think there's enough in there for boys to connect with whilst keeping them entertained.
The Verdict:
Funny, original and gripping although the f-word and knob jokes won't be to everyone's tastes.
As if school bullies and his mum's tofu sandwiches weren't enough for Hector Brunty, he now has another dilemma: a talking brain tumour.
Henry Tumour turns out to be the perfect alter-ego, advising Hector on haircuts, high-fashion, and tactics for snogging the best-looking girl in school. Controlling his speech and brain chemicals is quite enough, but soon Henry Tumour is trying to make more decisions about Hector's life than he'd like.
Can Hector overpower his tumour in order to get what he really wants ... before they both go under the knife?
This is a brilliantly imaginative book, wonderfully told in the first person that deals with a serious subject matter in a way that makes you laugh out loud.
I thought that Anthony McGowan's Hector was a terrific narrator - a geeky schoolboy interested in the Justice League and Star Trek with a nice-but-vague hippy mother wih a valium addiction and a social conscience she's trying to pass on to her son. The narrative voice is pitch-perfect but McGowan adds to it by making the brain tumour a character in his own right who comments on Hector's story. Henry Tumour is the kind of boy that Hector perhaps wishes he could be - with a highly defined sense of fashion, nerves of steel and low animal cunning, he can advise Hector on how to avoid and best the bullying Tierney and his cronies but is also much more obsessed with sex than Hector is, encouraging him to pursue the school goddess, Uma Upshaw, rather than Amanda Something who has a wine-stain birthmark on her face but who Hector feels more drawn to.
There's a great deal of humour in the book, and whilst the knob jokes and sex gags won't be for everyone, I have to admit that I did chuckle many times. As a note for parents, McGowan does use the f-word several times during the story, which may not make this appropriate for younger readers. He also isn't afraid to show the cruelty of the school playground or school bullies and I did shudder at one scene towards the end involving Flaherty (a kid whose dad is a well known local criminal and hard man) as it's uncomfortable reading. My biggest nitpick is that the final confrontation between Hector and Tierney didn't quite convince me, not least because it relies on Tierney not knowing something that I really felt he would know.
What's interesting is that McGowan handles the way in which brain tumours can affect personality and behaviour in a way that shows how serious they are (e.g. he shows Hector being sick and passing out and his fear at what is going to happen to him), whilst keeping it interesting and humourous. You finish the book almost feeling sad about what's going to happen to Henry and worried about what will happen to Hector but at the same time you don't pity Hector for his plight. It's possible that some people will read this and think that it doesn't take cancer as seriously as it perhaps ought to, but for me the point of the book is to show that being a teenager with brain cancer doesn't have to mean the end of your life and in Hector's case, it actually helps him to take control of his life and stop worrying about what his schoolmates think.
The final thing I'd like to say is that I really admired the way in which the book is set out. McGowan incorporates graphic novel artwork and script-layout to help tell the story and whilst this could have been distracting in the hands of a lesser writer, I found that it kept me completely hooked. It's definitely worth giving to a teenage boy who wouldn't normally be keen to read books because I think there's enough in there for boys to connect with whilst keeping them entertained.
The Verdict:
Funny, original and gripping although the f-word and knob jokes won't be to everyone's tastes.
