Blueeyedboy [Paperback]

This is probably one of the most difficult reviews I have written in a long while, for two reasons: 1) I am a HUGE Joanne Harris fan; I have read nearly all her books and just adore them - except for this one 2) I really had no idea what was going on for most of this book.

How do I even explain? Let's give it a go: The story is narrated by B.B., a loner who spends most of his time on the internet either writing his own personal diary and telling the story of his life as he sees it and also writing fic (stories) on his badguysrock.com - a website that he created himself and attracts a whole array of misfits with their own problems. What is apparant from very early on is that B.B. had a particularly unconventional childhood with a very bizarre family around him. Switching between his private journal and the fiction he writes on badguysrock, we get to see B.B's life played out before us in all its murderous glory.

Sounds simple enough, right? The thing is, I just didn't get it. I read somewhere, before I picked this book up, that Harris started writing this and had no idea where it was going and how it would end up, and I'm afraid to say that that is the same feeling I got while reading it. I didn't get any sense of a plot or purpose for much of it and at times it felt like I was watching someone vent their spleen about.....well, everything. It felt cynical, dark and even bitter but even then I got the sense of it being on the part of the author more than the protagonist.

There were other characters in this book, one of whom - Albertine - also shares her diary entries with us and they give this books some of the unexpected twists that appear more towards the end. Because of the tone and subject matter of the book there are naturally going to be one or two unsavoury characters, but I found that I didn't like any of them. I couldn't find a single redeeming quality in anyone who crossed the pages, which made for some uncomfortable reading for me.

It is with a sigh and a heavy heart that I write this review, as (as I said) I am a huge Joanne Harris fan but this book felt like such a departure from her other books that I love so much - even Gentlemen and Players which is also classed as a thriller but which I loved (it was very plot driven and had humour as well as some great charaters and twists).

To sum up: blueeyedboy is not a bad book, it is a different book than I am used to from Harris. There were parts of the book that I really enjoyed and felt that I was getting into, but unfortunately they were outweighed by the parts that were dark and cynical and uncomfortable to me. I do believe that this may have been the point of the book - afterall, can we really believe anything we read on the internet? No, necessarily - we can be anyone we want on the internet; we can invent a whole new persona. It's just that for me, as a reader, it felt too chaotic, and too much dark with not enough light.

A good read, but not an enjoyable read. Liked it but didn't love it

You are viewing a review by Diacha posting on badboysbook.@amazon.com

Posted at: 23:11 on Thursday 8

Status: Public

Mood: Unsettled

Listening to: Frankie Schubert and the Poxboys : String Quintet in C

This is a flawed but nonetheless compelling psychological novel. It is too long and has the potential to lose its readers. But for those who persevere through its heartbreak hill the home stretch is worth it.

On the Internet, nobody knows you are a dog - but they would do well to suspect it. Harris relates her story through the postings of two unreliable narrators on the badguysrock website, In keeping with the general ambiguity of the book, "rock" may be either a noun or a verb. Both protagonists are damaged from their childhoods. Blueeyedboy is fortysomething and lives at home with his Ma; Albertine is slightly younger and has known BB all her life. Neither is who they seem. Their web entries are either "restricted" in which case they are private journal entries that seem to be truthful, or "public " in which case they are likely to be fantasies or works of fiction ("fics") posted to entertain other members of the web community. A Greek chorus of the latter appears at the end of these entries essentially to grade them, for example: "chrysalisbaby: wish I could be there too (cries)." Fortunately these web-props are not very obtrusive and the chapters themselves are written not in trnk8d txtspk but in old-fashioned, long-hand literary prose.

In her commentary on the novel (see the author's website), Joanne Harris discusses her fascination with how many people now find their real "communities" in the virtual rather than the real world. That is true to some extent of BB and Albertine, but they and the main characters in the book all also reside very much in the real life community of Malbry, a village in the North, the same world as that of "Gentlemen and Players." Malbry's denizens engage in all the traditional rivalries, petty snobberies, spying, gossiping and I-hate-to-be the-one-to-tell-you-but revelations of a small community. The interplay between the virtual and physical worlds creates a sort of three-dimensional chessboard across which BB and Albertine make their increasingly aggressive moves. There is almost no happiness in the village except for snatched scenes between a little blind girl and her father and we know that they are doomed.

"Blueeyedboy's" psychological tension wells from two sources - the gradual unfolding of the past and revelation of who "BB" and "Albertine" really are; and the sense that BB is about to go over the edge. His fics specialize in murder fantasies. We learn (or think we learn) that there were two real life homicides in the past and there is the growing sense that there will soon be another.

In addition to the device of the web community, Harris makes heavy use of themes involving colour and synaesthesia. Blueeyedboy's mother, Gloria Winter née White, assigns each of her sons a colour: black, brown and blue, nicknames them accordingly and dresses them exclusively in the designated colour. This affects BB for life. He also turns out to be a synaesthete, experiencing strong smells and tastes as he perceives events. Another character sees - or claims to see- colours while hearing music (Harris gives a nod in the text to Gide's "La Symphonie Pastorale"), and BB's brother apparently suffers from mirror-touch synaesthesia. These themes add complexity to the book but at times seem forced.

Despite its need for editorial deadheading, "Blueeyed Boy" is a powerful book. It combines the insight of a literary novel with the suspense of a psychological thriller. I stayed up late to finish it and have been thinking of it since.

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Joanne Harris began her career with two works of dark fiction that in many ways define her style better than the crowd-pleasing 'Chocolat'. She has always been interested in the masks we hide behind, and in 'blueeyedboy' is able to give full rein to these ideas. The most fascinating aspect of social networking is that it allows for identities to be reshaped and shifted by those who take part. While it's important not to give away the climactic surprises of the story, suffice it to say that she uses concepts like the unreliable narrator, fantasy VS reality and the masking of emotions to reveal truths about people we only think we know.

'blueeyedboy' has the ring of dark truth for anyone who spends time social networking. It also seems like a natural extension of the styles she has explored in 'Gentlemen & Players' and before that, in 'Sleep, Pale Sister'. It's a cautionary and very modern story with killer twists, and if it appears to involve characters who seem motivated by something more cynical than usual, it's because the baroque formalities of the blogosphere can hide a multitude of sins. This one deserves to encourage readers who may only have explored her France- set fiction.