Review: The Boy With Two Heads by Andy Mulligan
Title: The Boy With Two Heads Author: Andy Mulligan
Genre: Young Adult (Adventure, Drama)
Publisher: David Fickling Books Published: July 2013
Paperback: 382 pages
Stand alone or Series: Stand alone
Source of Book: Review copy from the publisher
My thanks to Kim at Random House Struik
How would YOU feel if you woke up and found another head growing out of YOUR neck? What's more it's a living, breathing, TALKING head, with a rude, sharp tongue and an evil sense of humour. It knows all your darkest thoughts and it's not afraid to say what it thinks. To ANYBODY.
That's exactly what happens to eleven-year-old Richard Westlake. Prepare to be stunned.
Review: The second I read the back cover blurb for The Boy With Two Heads I was hooked – there were just so many possibilities for this story and I knew I had to read it. The book didn't quite live up to my expectations, but its central themes of friendship and acceptance are important and well-handled.
The Boy With Two Heads starts at a great pace – Richard Westlake wakes up one morning with a suspicious lump in his throat and is rushed off to hospital. The lump continues to grow and the reader is caught in breathless anticipation as one of the doctors announces that it is a second head, and that it's developing at a rapid rate. I was swept up by the beginning of The Boy With Two Heads – the excitement of the unknown and the undercurrent of menace coming from the doctors promised a thrilling adventure. Unfortunately I found that the central portion of the book dropped the ball. The pacing slowed to a crawl and the charged atmosphere that Mulligan had created in the beginning was nowhere to be seen. There was a rekindling of that spark that had initially caught my interest towards the end of the book which went some way towards redeeming the story.
The lead characters in most Young Adult fiction are in their mid-to-late teens, so it was a bit of an adjustment reading about a group of eleven-year-olds. They're interesting characters, but I think I'm just a bit too old to connect with that age group and that affected my enjoyment of the book as a whole. Richard is a quiet, well-mannered boy and the contrast between him and Rikki, his second head, is marked. Where Richard just wants to get along with people, Rikki seems hell-bent on destroying his friendships and reputation. It was interesting to watch the relationship between Richard and Rikki as it initially worsened and then began to heal as the two parts came to terms with one another.
The Boy With Two Heads is essentially a book about accepting who you are and the nature of friendship. It has an important message for young people and I think I may be just a bit too old to have appreciated it fully.
Rating: 6
Genre: Young Adult (Adventure, Drama)
Publisher: David Fickling Books Published: July 2013
Paperback: 382 pages
Stand alone or Series: Stand alone
Source of Book: Review copy from the publisher
My thanks to Kim at Random House Struik
How would YOU feel if you woke up and found another head growing out of YOUR neck? What's more it's a living, breathing, TALKING head, with a rude, sharp tongue and an evil sense of humour. It knows all your darkest thoughts and it's not afraid to say what it thinks. To ANYBODY.
That's exactly what happens to eleven-year-old Richard Westlake. Prepare to be stunned.
Review: The second I read the back cover blurb for The Boy With Two Heads I was hooked – there were just so many possibilities for this story and I knew I had to read it. The book didn't quite live up to my expectations, but its central themes of friendship and acceptance are important and well-handled.
The Boy With Two Heads starts at a great pace – Richard Westlake wakes up one morning with a suspicious lump in his throat and is rushed off to hospital. The lump continues to grow and the reader is caught in breathless anticipation as one of the doctors announces that it is a second head, and that it's developing at a rapid rate. I was swept up by the beginning of The Boy With Two Heads – the excitement of the unknown and the undercurrent of menace coming from the doctors promised a thrilling adventure. Unfortunately I found that the central portion of the book dropped the ball. The pacing slowed to a crawl and the charged atmosphere that Mulligan had created in the beginning was nowhere to be seen. There was a rekindling of that spark that had initially caught my interest towards the end of the book which went some way towards redeeming the story.
The lead characters in most Young Adult fiction are in their mid-to-late teens, so it was a bit of an adjustment reading about a group of eleven-year-olds. They're interesting characters, but I think I'm just a bit too old to connect with that age group and that affected my enjoyment of the book as a whole. Richard is a quiet, well-mannered boy and the contrast between him and Rikki, his second head, is marked. Where Richard just wants to get along with people, Rikki seems hell-bent on destroying his friendships and reputation. It was interesting to watch the relationship between Richard and Rikki as it initially worsened and then began to heal as the two parts came to terms with one another.
The Boy With Two Heads is essentially a book about accepting who you are and the nature of friendship. It has an important message for young people and I think I may be just a bit too old to have appreciated it fully.
Rating: 6
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