Reviews

Henry Tumour by Anthony McGowan

wolverinefactor's review against another edition

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2.0

Hysterical premise but wasted by bland and unoriginal setups and most of the jokes don’t land. I imagine if I was British I might have enjoyed the humor a bit more

vanquishingvolumes's review against another edition

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2.0

I’m clearly too old for this book - it was a very young read and while that in itself is not a bad thing it was for this particular book. There was no character building or plot - just a young teenage being being young, dumb, and horny while having internalized conversations with his brain tumor. 

lazygal's review against another edition

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4.0

Difficult to think of a book about a boy and his brain tumor as funny, but this one really is. Hector, who's been having rather severe headaches, starts hearing a voice. Not just any voice, it's the voice of Jack... Jack Tumor (who TALKS LIKE DEATH if you know what I mean).

Jack's funny at times, cranky at others. It's sort of like Heck's subconscious but better - at one point (and I'm paraphrasing here) Jack admits that he has access to everything in Hector's brain, including stuff he doesn't know is there. Some of that is girls (Uma and Amanda), some of that is how to best the school bullies, and some of it is bad graveyard poetry. Go figure.

Mom's a hippie from the CND demonstrations, serving mung bean soup and various icky-sounding teas, and doesn't seem terribly good at Mom-stuff, particularly when her son is finally diagnosed with the tumor. Or after, it seems.

The majority of the action takes place in a fortnight, which seems short but there's a lot packed in. I think the boys will like it, despite its being written in English, not American.
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