- Paperback: 208 pages
- Publisher: Penguin UK; New edition edition (Oct 21 1999)
- Language: English
- ISBN-10: 0140279105
- ISBN-13: 978-0140279108
- Product Dimensions: 17.2 x 11 x 1.6 cm
- Shipping Weight: 118 g
- Average Customer Review: 3.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: #1,400,585 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
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Product Details |
Product Description
From Amazon
The New Boy of William Sutcliffe's hilariously touching debut novel causes a bit of a stir when he arrives at Mark's posh private school. For a start, Barry is devastatingly handsome and causes girls and boys to buckle at the knees. Mark is more than a little jealous, considering himself to be much less attractive. But he spots an ally in Barry and the two quickly become friends though Mark's feelings for Barry are often confused. For a start, he finds himself lusting after the boy in the showers but refuses to think it's because he is gay. Meanwhile, Barry is getting busy with most of the female population within a 50-mile radius, including an affair with one of his own teachers. Mark quickly realises that if he is ever going to be a hit with the opposite sex, he needs Barry's help. But he learns that Barry is hiding a few secrets of his own.
This wonderfully funny and engaging novel is a fast and captivating read, as Sutcliffe hits so many marks about the clichés of school life. The neurotic teachers, the geeky pupils and the rites of passage will all strike a chord within most readers, and the characters are effectively and warmly drawn. Mark and Barry's relationship is so wonderfully captured; their brief conversations are mainly populated with swearwords and degenerate into arguments by their end. There are examinations of both religion and, more importantly, homosexuality, and it's a comfort to see these issues treated with a respectful sense of humour. In the end though, New Boy isn't so much a novel about being gay, more about being who you want to be. --Jonathan Weir
Book Description
This novel is set in a London boys' school, and tells the story of teenager Mark, who emerges from self-proclaimed ugliness when blond and beautiful Barry, joins the school. The pair embark on a variety of sexual misadventures, until they fall out when Barry announces he is gay.
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
Inside This Book
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First Sentence
Along with the rest of the staff, the chaplain at my school failed to notice that the place had long since been taken over by Jews and Asians. Read the first page Browse Sample Pages
Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Back Cover
Along with the rest of the staff, the chaplain at my school failed to notice that the place had long since been taken over by Jews and Asians. Read the first page Browse Sample Pages
Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Back Cover
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Customer Reviews
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Most helpful customer reviews
5.0 out of 5 stars
ignore the bad review,
By Dear Dan (Canada) - See all my reviews
This review is from: New Boy (Paperback)
I read this book a few years ago, so I don't remember all the details, but I remember really enjoying it. I don't know what's wrong with the other person who reviewed it – apparently without even finishing the book... There is a gay coming of age / coming out / same sex attraction plotline but it's not just a 'gay book' and would be enjoyed by gay and non-gay readers alike, especially teens to twentysomethings. This is an appealing, quick read.. It wasn't exactly what I had expected but was a nice surprise. It was also pretty funny. I recomend it.. In fact, I think I'll re-read it.
1.0 out of 5 stars
Not worth the effort,
By Lisa L. Hansen (Køge, Denmark) - See all my reviews
This review is from: New Boy: Stage Play (Paperback)
How this book managed to sneak under the radar of the Penguin editor and actually get published I will never understand but it did and the literary world is a poorer place for it. I usually finish every book I've started reading no matter how bad it is, because I always keep on giving it just one more chance and one more and one more.....but not so with this one. I made it to page 108 (out of 200) and then had to put it away as my mind was threatening to cave in under the weight of how bad this book is. First of all, the title of the book is "New boy" but only a small part of the book is actually about the new boy, Barry. Instead most of it is about its narrator, Mark, and never have I met a character that got on my nerves that quickly. He will spend three or four pages telling a story only to end it with "but that's actually not really what happened. I made it up because the truth would have been too boring" and this happens in chapter after chapter. He's also just plain nasty - he will humiliate other people in order to be "one of the boys" and doesn't see anything wrong with it unless the victim turns out to be stronger than him and he generally has absolutely no empathy for other people. Everything in his world revolves around himself. Second of all, it is being marketed as a gay love story but apparently no one has told this to William Sutcliffe as the book deals mostly with what it was like to be in an all-boys school in the mid-80'es with various anecdotes (some quite funny, I'll give him that) thrown in here and there. It reads like William Sutcliffe wanting to share stories from his own days at school but thinking that he had better dress them up as a novel to get people to read them (and then he doesn't even include that many stories). All in all this is a book with little plot and narrative drive and an extremely unpleasant main character and although it does offer an occasional chuckle here and there it is simply not worth neither the time nor the money. Best avoided.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta) Amazon.com:
1.0 out of 5 stars (1 customer review) 9 of 17 people found the following review helpful
1.0 out of 5 stars
Not worth the effort,
By Lisa L. Hansen - Published on Amazon.com
This review is from: New Boy: Stage Play (Paperback)
How this book managed to sneak under the radar of the Penguin editor and actually get published I will never understand but it did and the literary world is a poorer place for it. I usually finish every book I've started reading no matter how bad it is, because I always keep on giving it just one more chance and one more and one more.....but not so with this one. I made it to page 108 (out of 200) and then had to put it away as my mind was threatening to cave in under the weight of how bad this book is. First of all, the title of the book is "New boy" but only a small part of the book is actually about the new boy, Barry. Instead most of it is about its narrator, Mark, and never have I met a character that got on my nerves that quickly. He will spend three or four pages telling a story only to end it with "but that's actually not really what happened. I made it up because the truth would have been too boring" and this happens in chapter after chapter. He's also just plain nasty - he will humiliate other people in order to be "one of the boys" and doesn't see anything wrong with it unless the victim turns out to be stronger than him and he generally has absolutely no empathy for other people. Everything in his world revolves around himself. Second of all, it is being marketed as a gay love story but apparently no one has told this to William Sutcliffe as the book deals mostly with what it was like to be in an all-boys school in the mid-80'es with various anecdotes (some quite funny, I'll give him that) thrown in here and there. It reads like William Sutcliffe wanting to share stories from his own days at school but thinking that he had better dress them up as a novel to get people to read them (and then he doesn't even include that many stories). All in all this is a book with little plot and narrative drive and an extremely unpleasant main character and although it does offer an occasional chuckle here and there it is simply not worth neither the time nor the money. Best avoided. |
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