I’ve been listening to The True Story of Butterfish while quilting – here is my quilt. I use the audible app on my ipod, which works well.
I’ve read a few Nick Earls’ books; Zigzag Street, World of Chickens and Perfect Skin and I’ve enjoyed all of them. I’ve always described them as chick lit for boys and I wasn’t being derogatory. I mean that in a good way.
Here is the blurb …
With his chart-topping band, Butterfish, Curtis Holland lived the cliched rock dream. But no dream lasts forever. When Annaliese Winter walks down Curtis Holland’s front path, he’s ill-prepared for a sixteen-year-old schoolgirl who’s a confounding mixture of adult and child. He’s back in Brisbane trying to build a life and he is not used to having a neighbour at all. So when Curtis receives an invitation to dinner from Annaliese’s mother, Kate, he is surprised when he not only accepts but finds himself being drawn to this remarkably unremarkable family. Even to fifteen-year-old Mark, who is at war with his own surging adolescence. Curtis soon realises that with Kate divorced, Annaliese and Mark need a male role model in their lives, but it’s hard for him to help when he’s just starting to grow up himself and harder still when Annaliese begins to show an interest in him that is less than filial.
There are some funny, laugh out loud moments in this novel. I particularly enjoy the conversations. There is some poignant stuff too – dealing with ailing parents and divorce. The setting is fabulous – I could imagine the heat and the ‘dagginess’ of the studio. This is a fun, easy novel that never jolts you with a poorly written sentence.
The version I listened to is here and the narrator (David Tredinnick) was fabulous – because the narrator can make or break an audio book.
More reviews …