Absolute Beginners - Colin MacInnes

Yes! So very, very yes. This book for me was everything I expected The Catcher in the Rye to be, and then some. I bought it without having watched the movie beforehand (luckily, judging by the reviews) but after having listened to the Bowie song hundreds of times.

The narrator is the kind of kid I'd like to think I would have been in 1958 - argumentative but caring, stupidly confused but well-meaning. The entourage of characters is of the highest of qualities, as is his rather unique relation with his dad.

And again, this was an insight into a way of writing dialogues that I had never been exposed to before. And the "benefit" of the riots at the end added an important extra layer to the novel.

If Up the Junction has been the disappointment of the year so far, Absolute Beginners is probably the pleasant unexpected surprise.

Up the Junction - Nell Dunn

Just the quickest of posts to say that I really, really, really wanted to like this book. For the Squeeze song, and for the fact that it looked so very promising from its synopsis.

And instead I really didn't. Some stories were just not interesting enough for me (I'm probably a bad person, but the shallowness and uncouthness of some of the characters really got on my nerves), and others were just too much (the abortion one, for instance).

A shame. Possibly, given the expectations, the most disappointing book of the year so far.