REVIEW, Gentlemen by Michael Northrop

An unflinching look at what binds friends together—and what can tear them apart. 

    Prod dets

Gentleman

Series: debut in 2009

Pub:  2010 PUSH

Author: Michael Northrop

Genre: contemporary fiction

Format: paperback (sm); 234pp w/ 26 chapters

Age Range: YA

            Synopsis

Michael, Tommy, Mixer, and Bones aren’t just from the wrong side of the tracks, they’re from the wrong side of everything. Everyone at their high school ignores them—or, in Bone’s case, is dead afraid of them. Nobody takes them seriously, except their remedial English teacher, Mr. Haberman. He calls them “gentlemen” and treats them like they have a shot in life. But when one of the boys goes missing, the clues start piling up, and they all seem to point in one direction.....

            Thoughts

Youth....it’s the only thing I can think of. Though I’m saying it with a small smile that could be interpreted into a number of things.

But still, *small shake of head, that smile* Youth....

Yeah, it makes me old. I know. But hell I am, sorta so I have a right. And still this book is so well written. It screams Youth!!!!

It screams of a fifteen year old who is talking to you about his shit ass life, in details you’d never really get out of a teen, and in that way, he tell you like that. It’s also written very much as if he’d talking to you about shit that’s happened. And because of that view it seems even more so.

Still....Youth.

Mostly it’s youthful because of the way it’s set. Like when he’s talking about something that runs into something else, it runs and then he comes back to the point. Its great way to have information about the people and places, and it’s interesting. And pushes that teen thing right in there, but it also makes it kinda dense. Like you’ve read a whole book but you’ve only gotten threw two chapters.

                                ~~*_**~~

Fuck man, this is not what I expected and a great story, I’m really glad that it read it, that I stuck threw even when it started to blur together.

It’s mostly about jumping to conclusions and what can happen when that one idea gets caught up into your brain. And more so when you’re a teen. I don’t mean it in a bad way, really it’s the time when you learn things about yourself, the world and life in general. But you have the excuse of being young.

It’s about Crime and Punishment.

It’s written in a roundabout way. He’s telling the story of what happened, and it, well, thinking back, reminds me a lot of When Dogs Cry. It had that same male view/back story, were it could have your eyes rolling and crack you up at the same time. Only where that was about finding yourself and love, this one is about consequences of things and living with them.

Though unlike the first one there wasn’t anything for me to truly love bit I thought it was great and I enjoyed it when I was reading it.

I would talk more about it but there really isn’t anything to add from the blurb that wouldn’t give it away and I don’t want that. More so the whole thing was the kid talking about what happened, in the roundabout way that could have really been said in like a chapter but was cooler this way, I guess, maybe.

I had a laugh, Youth, hysterical.

No seriously, there isn’t anything funny about this book or its context and it’s interesting to see what a small thought can fuck up your life.

Series

The Padded Cell. Trapped. Plunked. Rotten

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