A review by girlvsbookshelf
Apples by Richard Milward

1.0

This was quite an odd book that I whizzed through in a day off work. It wasn't terrible but the whole way through something about the narrative felt sort of stilted, as if the author hadn't decided exactly what mood he wanted to create. It pitched somewhere between funny & tragic but I felt it fell a little short of both. I didn't understand the Adam/Eve/Apples metaphor at all & couldn't see that it had any link to the plot. Some sections were quite good and showed clear insight into how rubbish it can be to be a teenager but the main characters were not entirely convincing. I particularly found that certain turns of phrase they use jarred slightly; for example what 15-year-old lad have you ever met who would talk about a shirt as 'that number I wore to the disco'? Or a slightly rough scally girl saying the guy she fancies is 'quite the honeypie'? The whole thing reminded me of Bret Easton Ellis' 'The Rules Of Attraction' (one chapter in particular bears a striking similarity) but not as well executed.

It's funny though that after all these negative points I didn't come away hating the book and found it difficult to choose between a one or two star rating. I think it's quite apparent that this was the author's first book & I would be interested to read something by him in the future to see if and how his style develops & becomes more polished.