The Book Boy [Paperback]

I've read just about all of the 50 or so Quick Reads titles published so far at the time of this review, in the brilliant standalone short story initiative. You pretty much can't go wrong with picking up any of them. However that's not the case with Trollope's poorly written effort The Book Boy. Quick Reads only cost a couple of dollars each, so even with an average story you still end with a feeling of, well I guess it was worth the next to nothing amount of money I paid for it. However this one's so bad, you'll wish you'd spent your small change on a chocolate bar or something instead.

This book revolves around a thirty eight year old female character named Alice who is so pathetic and timid that you just don't believe her to be real at all. She lives a life as pretty much a stay at home housewife, although she has a job cleaning the local corner store and even though she knows she's being underpaid and overworked, never says a thing as she believes she is good for nothing except ironing and sleeping with her overweight husband who sees her pretty much as a possession. From the moment she wakes up she's verbally battered by her husband for waking him up, or looking at him. Her son abuses her for taking too much time in the bathroom making him late for his date with the local school bad boy he is trying to impress. Her daughter who also likes the same boy has no respect for her either and sees her as a pathetic embarrassment to avoid bringing up in conversation with her friends. Both kids know they can do whatever they want around Alice, she won't do a thing to stop them, including bringing the bad boy over when they should be in school. Alice takes patheticism to extreme levels and sees the only way to deal with this situation is to do a deal with the bad boy, in return for her life savings she will meet up with him in the local motorbike shop where her savings have been spent on his new bike. Even her best friend doesn't really like her and is an equally pathetic individual, knowing she's in a domestic abuse situation is quick to go running to the husband the second she thinks she can get Alice in trouble. Her kids equally unlikeable characters likewise react similarly when the bad boy no longer wants to be around them. Can Alice pull off her plan to escape her pathetic life or has she been too much of a doormat for so long her life will get even worse when what she's doing is discovered?

Not only are the characters unrealistic and pathetic. There seems to have been no editor involved in this as well. Often a character says the same thing twice in a conversation.

If you're unfamiliar with the Quick Reads initiative, they are books published to increase literacy levels by encouraging those who don't like to read beyond magazines and comic books, to try fiction through cheap priced (current Quick Reads all sell of the rack for under two pounds in the UK) short story length fiction and non fiction. Even the cover designer couldn't be bothered to read much of this one, as the poorly painted woman on the front cover has dark hair, Alice has blonde in this short story. I don't think The Book Boy would encourage anyone who is trying fiction for the first time, or retrying fiction for a while, to want to keep reading other short stories or move on to full length novels.

However don't let it put you off the Quick Reads short stories. There are some brilliant stories to be found!

A straightfoward feminist dream reverie of modern, lower middle-class city life: Just give the bully a little push, and.... A short, sweet, simple read while you're at the laundromat or the airport.

This is a great little story about the determination of the oppressed triumphing over the bullying of the oppressors. It shows that everyone has a weakness, even those bullies, and that the negatives in our past can be turned into positives in the future. Worth reading.

› Go to Amazon.com to see all 3 reviews  2.7 out of 5 stars