Lowly’s Book Blog

My review bookstack has just hit 20 new unread titles. So today the discipline starts. And I chose a good book to begin with.

Before reading The Real Thing another book in what could loosely be called the Glenfield High series by this author, I had never heard of Brian Falkner. Now a websurf shows that he is one of New Zealand top young authors for young adults, and Walker Books released his titles into the Australian market just before Christmas last year. I received my copy in a package of reading for the Victorian Premier’s Reading Challenge.

It looked like The Super Freak was the second title in the series, so I left it for awhile. But I should know better than to trust publisher’s blurbs. In the last few chapters I noticed where the action of the two books overlapped, and Freak should have been first. But it doesn’t matter.

Anyway, the book is about a poor young boy who has been moved from one end of New Zealand to another while his father, an actor, chases work. He arrives for his first day at high school, and knows no one. Throughout his lonely first days he finds refuge in the library, starts to analyse his classmates and naturally comes up against the school bully. In desperation he begins to wish very hard that people would change their minds. And guess what? They do…

Suddenly Jacob starts to take control of his world. The English teacher sets an essay topic on knickers. The PE teacher lets his failure go unnoticed. With this new power, Jacob can do anything. A super-criminal is born. Months are spent planning, rehearsing and arranging his heist, robbing the school fete. Along the way he makes friends, discovers he is not alone, and even bests the bully. I can’t say much more without taking away the excitement of the story.

This book was surprisingly good. It arrived without fanfare. I had bought copies for the library just to keep new and fresh material available for the younger students. However, I will be promoting them enthusiastically from now on, especially for those year 7 boys who really can’t be bothered with something complex.