iBoy – Review

I just finished Kevin Brooks’s iBoy which I had to read for school after weeks of waiting for my teacher’s approval to read the ending. Here are my final thoughts!

Synopsis:

Tom Harvey is living a pretty normal life in a bad neighborhood outside of London – until an iPhone hits his head and its parts implanting into his skin making it possible for him to access the internet unlimitedly and hack anything anywhere anytime. But while someone is throwing an iPhone at Tom, his friend Lucy gets raped by gang members only a few meters away. With his new powers as iBoy, Tom has the ability to avenge Lucy and bring justice back to his neighborhood tormented by the gangs. But will he ever go too far in order to do what he believes to be right? He might do what is right, but he might as well lose himself along the way.

Genre: Young Adult Fantasy/Science-Fiction

Publication Date: July 1st 2010

Pages: 290

Rating: 4/5 stars

My thoughts:

As I already mentioned in my post First Impressions, I wasn’t very thrilled to have to read this book for school, but it’s really worth it.

The plot is something you have to get used to at first, which was also the reason I was skeptical throughout the first thirty pages and thought I was reading complete bullshit, excuse the language. But after a while, the whole situation of iBoy, these supernatural powers and Tom’s determination to avenge Lucy’s rape and to figure out who’s behind all the violence, grows on you and you desperately want to know the ending. The story itself was a great portrait of today’s society and a potential outcome to our artificial intelligence and mixed together with a great plot line it made a great book. The ending was phenomenal and I had no idea what was about to happen all the way through, which made the last page even better.

The characters were nothing too special, but that was also not the main aspect and focus of the book. I really liked Tom, he had a good heart and I enjoyed reading about his inner struggles concerning his identity – iBoy or Tom. Lucy, the girl who got raped, still seems like a stranger to me because we didn’t really get to know much about her. But in general, and this is what I think Kevin Brooks wanted to raise awareness about, is the common situation in bad neighborhoods where gangs rule the streets and he accomplished that very well.

I absolutely loved the writing. It was always a mix of scientific language to underline the iBoy effect, but the overall focus was on the literary language, displaying Tom’s emotions. This is my second book written by Kevin Brooks, I already read Black Rabbit Summer, and I really enjoy his writing style. He has a way of creating suspense with the simplest words possible and I really admire that.

Is this book recommendable: Yes!

Overall, I really enjoyed this book and would also recommend it outside of school. The story is very catchy and you get hooked easily, which is what reading is all about, isn’t it?