A review by verkisto
Jedi Summer With The Magnetic Kid by John Boden
3.0
There's a lot of good in this book. Boden's a good writer, with a knack for atmosphere and setting, and describing the things that are important. It's the kind of writing that makes me pay attention, and see what else he has available to read.
The thing is, I can't do much more than say "I liked it", because there's enough there to make me quibble. It feels disjointed, since there's no real plot to speak of, and the chapters feel more like vignettes tied together with a common theme instead of a real book. I get the feeling that's what Boden's going for -- childhood summers certainly feel that way -- but I went into this looking for a novel, and that's not really what I got.
In some ways, too, the writing still feels amateurish. I don't know enough about Boden to know where this falls in his bibliography, but if this is a first novel, it certainly shows. That's not a bad thing, necessarily -- S.A. Cosby's first book felt very much like a first book, but it certainly had heart, and led to Razorblade Tears -- but if it's not a first novel, then it seems like it should be a little tighter.
This particular edition didn't help, because it includes a few short stories after the novella that include Johnny and Roscoe, but each one takes a different approach to that relationship, even going so far as to give them different families and circumstances. It wasn't clear that I was leaving the novella and going into short stories, and I was completely thrown by how much things changed from one chapter to the next. It wasn't until one of the stories included a sister not mentioned in the novella that I realized what happened and figured out where the novella actually ended.
I do think fans of horror -- especially coming-of-age readers who liked Boy's Life -- will dig this the most. There are some supernatural elements that weave through the novella, but it's not the primary focus. It's so small that I hesitate to even call it horror, though those moments are effectively disquieting. Quibbles aside, I like Boden's writing enough to give him another try.
The thing is, I can't do much more than say "I liked it", because there's enough there to make me quibble. It feels disjointed, since there's no real plot to speak of, and the chapters feel more like vignettes tied together with a common theme instead of a real book. I get the feeling that's what Boden's going for -- childhood summers certainly feel that way -- but I went into this looking for a novel, and that's not really what I got.
In some ways, too, the writing still feels amateurish. I don't know enough about Boden to know where this falls in his bibliography, but if this is a first novel, it certainly shows. That's not a bad thing, necessarily -- S.A. Cosby's first book felt very much like a first book, but it certainly had heart, and led to Razorblade Tears -- but if it's not a first novel, then it seems like it should be a little tighter.
This particular edition didn't help, because it includes a few short stories after the novella that include Johnny and Roscoe, but each one takes a different approach to that relationship, even going so far as to give them different families and circumstances. It wasn't clear that I was leaving the novella and going into short stories, and I was completely thrown by how much things changed from one chapter to the next. It wasn't until one of the stories included a sister not mentioned in the novella that I realized what happened and figured out where the novella actually ended.
I do think fans of horror -- especially coming-of-age readers who liked Boy's Life -- will dig this the most. There are some supernatural elements that weave through the novella, but it's not the primary focus. It's so small that I hesitate to even call it horror, though those moments are effectively disquieting. Quibbles aside, I like Boden's writing enough to give him another try.