Thursday, July 14, 2016

Review: Hair in All the Wrong Places by Andrew Buckley


HAIR IN ALL THE WRONG PLACES
by Andrew Buckley
Month9Books LLC
Middle Grade Urban Fiction
ages 9+
237 pages


What has he done? What's happening to him? And what on Earth is that smell? For Colin Strauss, puberty stinks. Blackouts, hallucinations, and lapses in memory are the perils of growing up werewolf. Worse than that, Colin worries he might have had something to do with the recent attacks on the townspeople. He may have eaten a person. It doesn't matter that it's someone he doesn't particularly like. What kind of boy goes around eating people? Foolishly, all Colin can think about is how Becca Emerson finally kissed him for the first time. Yep, hormones are afoot. Yikes! But girls will have to wait. Collin better get himself under control before someone else ends up hurt or worse . . . dead.



MY TIDBITS

The title alone caught my eye--what a great one for a werewolf novel!

Colin is a kid with a pretty rough life. He's been pushed off to a small town to live with a super cranky grandmother, isn't exactly prime masculine material, is bullied and several townspeople make it clear that he's not welcome and should just leave. In other words, his life isn't exactly a sunny day dream. When enough is enough, and he tries to run away, a really weird accident turns his life upside down.

This is solid middle grade which will especially appeal to boys. The first pages start a direct conversation with the reader, drawing them in with tips and tricks to werewolves. After that, the story starts with Colin's miserable life. Any kid who has ever felt out of sorts and like a misfit will get Colin and feel for him. He's a natural type with a little sarcasm and not exactly filled with happy thoughts, except for the girl he likes...which he's also not sure how to deal with. So this really fits the age group well.

As for the writing, it does follow traditional story telling fashion for the most part, but throws in some other methods keeping it an interesting read. The pace flows nicely a little slower at times but never boring. The reader gets to know Colin and his thoughts well, which makes this an original and interesting pre-teen werewolf story with a fun twist.

Summed up, this is a great read for boys ages 9 and up, which takes a struggling boy and throws him into one of the whackiest situations ever. One thing is guaranteed, the readers will know how to deal with becoming a werewolf if, indeed, this problem should ever cross their path.




And here he is. . .
ANDREW BUCKLEY!!!



Andrew Buckley attended the Vancouver Film School’s Writing for Film and Television program. After pitching and developing several screenplay projects for film and television, he worked in marketing and public relations, before becoming a professional copy and content writer. During this time Andrew began writing his first adult novel, DEATH, THE DEVIL AND THE GOLDFISH, followed closely by his second novel, STILTSKIN both published by Curiosity Quills Press.


Andrew also writes under the pen name 'Jane D. Everly' for his HAVELOCK series of novels. And look for his first upper middle grade novel HAIR IN ALL THE WRONG PLACES coming Summer 2016 from Month9Books.


​Andrew also co-hosts a geek movie podcast, is working on several new novels, and has a stunning amount of other ideas. He now lives happily in the Okanagan Valley, BC with one beautiful wife, three kids, one cat, one needy dog, and a multitude of characters that live comfortably inside of his mind.
Andrew is represented by Mark Gottlieb at the Trident Media Group.







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