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Revision as of 15:44, 28 September 2020
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{{infoboxinfobox1
|title=Grow Up
|author=Ben Brooks
|buy=Yes
|borrow=Yes
|pages=180
|publisher=Canongate
|date=July 2011
|isbn=0857861875
|video=BpCakIgk9-M
|cover=0857861875
|aznuk=0857861875
|aznus=0857861875
}}
I'll be honest: I ''love'' this kind of book. I find adolescents funny so I like reading about their misadventures, and my sense of humour is not sophisticated so I laugh at the same jokes. So I found ''Grow Up'' hilarious. Eye-wateringly so. Other parents may find it eye-watering for entirely different reasons as it depicts unsafe sex, misogyny, drug-taking and just about every no-no they could possibly imagine.
And you do really have to read it for fun - while Jasper is endearing in an almost aspie kind of way, the Keith-as-axe-murder business is just plain silly and the plot doesn't really go anywhere. There isn't anything more to it than ''this is what it is like to be us''. But it's done with great vitality and energy and with a good heart. And there are plenty of belly laughs along the way.
(PS: Ben Brooks is nineteen. He wrote ''Grow Up'' at seventeen. I realise this is worth mentioning. But making a big point of it would be such a no-no with the pet adolescents in these 'ere parts I'm going with a footnote in order to avoid filial censure. Over and out).
My thanks to the good people at Canongate for sending the book. We also have a review of [[The Impossible Boy by Ben Brooks]].
[[Apples by Richard Milward]] treads a very similar path but takes a more artsy approach. Oliver, in [[Submarine by Joe Dunthorne]] , reminded me very much of Jasper. And [[My Side Of The Story by Will Davis]] adds coming out as gay into the mix with even more eye-watering eye-watering moments.
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[[Category:General Fiction]]
