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Boy A | 
 enlarge | Author: Jonathan Trigell
Publisher: Serpent's Tail
Category: Book
List Price: £7.99
Buy New: £2.91
You Save: £5.08 (64%)
New (39) Used (12) from £1.44
Rating:  17 reviews
Sales Rank: 12529
Media: Paperback
Edition: Film Tie-in Ed
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 256
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.5
Dimensions (in): 7.6 x 5.1 x 0.7
ISBN: 1846686628
Dewey Decimal Number: 823.92
EAN: 9781846686627
ASIN: 1846686628
Publication Date: October 25, 2007
Availability: Usually dispatched within 1-2 business days
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| Customer Reviews: Read 12 more reviews...
 Compelling and refreshingly humane November 4, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
Boy A is a portrait of a boy's doomed efforts at rehabilitation and redemption after committing a horrific act as a child.
An omniscient narrator eloquently expresses the thoughts of characters who might not ever be able, or think them profound enough to bother, to voice them. The result is insightful, deeply humane and often electrifying.
The use of multiple viewpoints allows the reader to perceive the sad ironies of life, those catalytic moments of realisation that, if verbalised, could have provided salvation.
In contrast with some of the other readers, I loved the ending, slightly reminiscent of AM Homes's 'The End of Alice', which kept me up until the early hours.
Boy A is an accessible, thrilling first novel which has something important to say. In an age of sensationalist, biased and often hysterical media coverage, it raises questions about the responsibility of the moralising tabloid press, which has the power to turn the public into a vengeful, vigilante mob.
Can't recommend highly enough.
boy a August 10, 2008
2 out of 3 found this review helpful
i thought this was a really good book. Not what i expected to be honest as I didnt think i would warm to the character but you do. he is a different person from the child 11 years previously and you want him to have some kind of normality.
 Excellent but fell down at the end April 27, 2008
3 out of 5 found this review helpful
My three star rating might make you think that I thought it was an average read - which I didn't. I thought it was excellent, but fell down at the end, and also by being long-winded in a couple of places. It's been reverred by prize givers, but I think the judges might have been a little swayed by the horror of the subject matter. However, on the whole it was very well handled.
This was a very, very provocative read, drawing you into sympathy for the character, Jack, while at the same time keeping you once step apart from him as you know that he has, with another much tougher boy, murdered a child, whilsts still a child himself. I felt very drawn into the account of his disguise in freedom, and my heart was usually in my mouth anticipating he will be 'found'.There is even the vague whiff that he might, actually, be innocent of the actual crime. As another reviewer has noted 'fatherhood' was a very scrutinised issue.
My criticisms were that some scenes went on for too long - the clubbing night out, and the eel - which made me anxious to get on with the story. But the real crash came at the end. I won't give anything away as the end was actually a 'real' ending, and not a cop-out, but the speed at which events came to pass were far too fast and glossed over for the sake of impact.
Very thought-provoking April 19, 2008
5 out of 5 found this review helpful
I didn't want to enjoy reading this book due to its subject matter - I didn't want to admit that I could empathise with someone who was capable of doing such an awful act, but I did - particularly because he was only ten when 'it' happened.
Having to start afresh when released into a world of which he has no experience requires courage and the guiding hand of 'Uncle Terry' - Jack's surrogate father. Jack's doing well, trying hard at working, making friends, and getting a girlfriend, but the media continually keeps nibbling away at the fact that a (child) child-killer is lose in the community - surely it can't end happily ever after?
The author cleverly builds up the tension, interweaving layers of the Boy A's neglected childhood and the crime itself, with life in prison, and life outside in the real world. Told mainly from Jack's PoV, but also from his friends, case-worker Terry and girlfriend Michelle. Things are never black and white, just different shades of grey... A really thought-provoking book that I'm glad I read.
Uncomfortable and sad, but very well observed February 20, 2008
6 out of 6 found this review helpful
A cleverly written account of a boy who has had to do most of his growing up in detention centres and prison. He is now 24 and is having to deal with a new experience...freedom...or is it?
Having been helped to choose a new name he has to try and learn how to fit into a life most of us take for granted. Meanwhile the media (red top newspapers specifically) bay for blood using photograph enhancements to guess what he looks like now and campaigns for the public to "...know who's living down their street."
As we read we learn about Jack both before his crime as well as the man he's trying to become. It is not however a story that cries out for sympathy 'because I had an unfortunate childhood'. It is far more subtle than that.
I like the way the chapters are alphabetically titled ("A is for Apple. A Bad Apple" / "T is for Time. Teachers and Trainers") which highlights the child Jack was, as well as relating to his experiences in life.
A disturbing story which we can all relate to in some form, even if only from the baying for blood/lynch mob mentality we saw at the time of the Jamie Bulger case. Whether it's the 'red top' readers who will be likely to read it though is another matter!
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