First Impressions: iBoy

I have to read this book by Kevin Brooks for school and so I wasn’t really looking forward to it, because well, who has made many good experiences with school books? I thought so. However, this book is better than I thought and so I’m really excited to continue. Here are my first thoughts!

This book is about the sixteen year old Tom living in a very dangerous neighborhood in London. When someone throws an iPhone at him and he has to undertake brain surgery, he experiences more and more unbelievable things: some of the phone structures have fused with his brain and now he’s able to function as an iPhone – he has access to the internet, can hack into any database and is able to defend himself with more than just his fists. But someone throwing an iPhone at him isn’t the only thing that has happened: Tom’s friend and longtime crush Lucy was raped by some gang kids and with Tom’s new ability, he may be able to avenge her – but will he go too far and abuse his unlimited access to knowledge?

Ok, this is a longer introduction than I had planned, but it’s worth it. After reading the synopsis at the back of the book, I was like I don’t really have to read this book, to be honest and maybe you’re thinking the same after you’ve read my personal description of the book, but don’t let that fool you.

After reading the first thirty pages I pretty much hated that book: it was boring and I couldn’t really connect to the story. But now I’m at page 200 (I know, a little late to write a first impressions post) and I’m loving it. Give it some time, because after page 50 I wasn’t able to put this book down. The writing is great, I love the protagonist Tom, he’s like Peter Parker and the story is incredible. We live in a digital world and I think this book is a great way of showing the upsides and downsides to technology and how unlimited access to the internet aka hacking into people’s phones and stuff can on one side lead to justice and on the other destroy people.

This book is about revenge – Tom is trying to get the drug dealers and rapers and violent gang people in his neighborhood to face charges and wants to bring justice back. But he also wants the rapists of Lucy to suffer and so he deals with how much is too much, how much he can hurt people without going too far…

Anyways, this book is pretty much epic. I can’t wait to continue when I’m allowed to (my teacher said we’re only allowed to read until age 200 because we’ll be working with the ending ughhhhhh….)! So all in all, don’t let the maybe boring synopsis trick you and definitely go check this out! PS: I also have to watch the Netflix movie with Maisie Williams!!!