The Cool Boffin

'I've always felt like a refugee...I've spent my life either pleasing other people - or dodging them.' By the end of this novel clever boy Richard Hodgson, victim of adults' dreams and contemporaries' contempt, has painfully learnt how to be true to himself and take command of his own life. His misguided notion that changing the externals will solve his problems and the scars that he subsequently picks up along the way, form the substance of this robust, very NOW novel for older readers. Modern youth culture and preoccupations are not given a rosy gloss in this book, which felt a shade over-long to me, but I daresay teenagers will love it and some adults will want to rail against it.