John Milton soon finds a new world through his scholarship to boarding school. He spends his five workdays away from home, and returns to his psychotic parents on the weekends. As a fourteen year-old boy, "Spud" Milton acquires friends and enemies alike, including several simultaneous girlfriends. Spud deals with birthday punishments and death threats each day, new ways to life's challenges appearing right after he needs them. His particular journey through South Africa's political dilemma complicates his troubles, and his miraculous adventure through adolescence begins and continues throughout the novel.
The beginning of Spud landed me in the very middle of the plot, sucking my attention into the first of many chapters. Finding the humor in an adolescent's struggle can be challenging, but John Van De Ruit did a fantastic job of doing so. By finding the root of Spud's problems and twisting them into a comfortable tale, any reader would find new boundaries for a comedy. Enjoying the language of the British was different, and I learned a good deal of foreign terminology.
Language and sexual themes.
Rating: 8
Reviewer Age: 13
Reviewer City, State and Country: Eagle Creek, OR USA
