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A review by perpetualephemeral
iBoy by Kevin Brooks
1.0
What an awful, awful book.
Context: my best friend Jess bought this for me after we watched the film adaptation (which was just as bad). I resigned myself to the fact I was going to have to tackle it eventually, and here we are.
iBoy's plot is awful. It's a mess of a 16 year old vigilante, a load of London criminal gang dealings, and a romance formed on top of multiple traumas. And not only that, but the main gimmick of the book is laughable. Tom is hit in the head with an iPhone, and gains its powers because parts of it are embedded within his brain . He can casually send and receive calls and access the internet, but oh wow - he can also hack into anything he wants - government databases, medical data, bank accounts?? How convenient.
The writing was often very cringey, with Kevin Brooks having the very irritating urge to put the lowercase letter "i" in front of every fucking part of iBoy he references. Brain? No, iBrain. Skin? No shot, iSkin. It DROVE ME UP THE WALL. Also, at one point, Tom spreads a rumor of someone being "a queer". Kevin, I've done some research on you - and I'm not sure you have a right in using that turn of phrase, and even if you did, it's a weird one to use.
I just want to move on from this absolute trash fire of a book. At least it's over.
I give iBoy one star.
Context: my best friend Jess bought this for me after we watched the film adaptation (which was just as bad). I resigned myself to the fact I was going to have to tackle it eventually, and here we are.
iBoy's plot is awful. It's a mess of a 16 year old vigilante, a load of London criminal gang dealings, and a romance formed on top of multiple traumas. And not only that, but the main gimmick of the book is laughable. Tom is hit in the head with an iPhone, and gains its powers because parts of it are embedded within his brain . He can casually send and receive calls and access the internet, but oh wow - he can also hack into anything he wants - government databases, medical data, bank accounts?? How convenient.
The writing was often very cringey, with Kevin Brooks having the very irritating urge to put the lowercase letter "i" in front of every fucking part of iBoy he references. Brain? No, iBrain. Skin? No shot, iSkin. It DROVE ME UP THE WALL. Also, at one point, Tom spreads a rumor of someone being "a queer". Kevin, I've done some research on you - and I'm not sure you have a right in using that turn of phrase, and even if you did, it's a weird one to use.
I just want to move on from this absolute trash fire of a book. At least it's over.
I give iBoy one star.