48 Shades of Brown
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Description
Australian teenager Dan Bancroft had a choice to make: go to Geneva with his parents for a year, or move into a house with his bass-playing aunt Jacq and her friend Naomi. He chose Jacq's place, and his life will never be the same. This action-packed and laugh-out-loud-funny novel navigates Dan's chaotic world of calculus, roommates, birds, and love.
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Product details
- 12-17
- Paperback | 274 pages
- 127 x 178 x 15mm | 295g
- 07 Jun 2004
- Clarion Books
- Boston, MA, United States
- English
- 0618452958
- 9780618452958
- 195,297
Review quote
STARRED REVIEW "With small details about throwing up, basil, Romeo and Juliet, brown birds, postcards, and sex, Earls build a too-true story that neither older young adults nor adults will be able to put down as their smiles become belly laughs that lead them to new perspectives." VOYA (Voice of Youth Advocates)
Dan's narration is wry and understatedly funny throughout as he comes face to face with the stretching but still extant limits of his maturation...this is a creative departure from the classic Bildugnsroman in its articulate portrayal of a young man who's starting to realize how much more there is to adulthood that he'd realized or is ready for.
Bulletin of the Center for Children's Books
Older teens will relish Dan's wry, self-deprecating honesty about attratction, sex (mostly overheard), beer, calculus, and his uproariously funny, earnest search for the kind of guy he wants to be.
Booklist, ALA
Dan is a good kid, and his ruefully observed narration of unrequited love will keep the attention of any boy once persuaded into its pages.
Horn Book
Through Dan's voice, Earls perfectly captures the obsessive, self-conscious, confused state of mind that goes along with adolescence. A vibrant rendition of growing pains.
Publishers Weekly
Dan is a wonderful, complex character. Teen boys - and girls - will find much that they can relate to in this coming-of-age story.
School Library Journal
This Australian coming-of-age novel is both funny and poignant. As Dan fumbles through the process of forming a relationship with someone of the opposite sex, he also learns about making pesto, interpreting Romeo and Juliet, why almost all birds are one of the 48 shades of brown, and why his best course of action is just to be himself.
KLIATT --
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Dan's narration is wry and understatedly funny throughout as he comes face to face with the stretching but still extant limits of his maturation...this is a creative departure from the classic Bildugnsroman in its articulate portrayal of a young man who's starting to realize how much more there is to adulthood that he'd realized or is ready for.
Bulletin of the Center for Children's Books
Older teens will relish Dan's wry, self-deprecating honesty about attratction, sex (mostly overheard), beer, calculus, and his uproariously funny, earnest search for the kind of guy he wants to be.
Booklist, ALA
Dan is a good kid, and his ruefully observed narration of unrequited love will keep the attention of any boy once persuaded into its pages.
Horn Book
Through Dan's voice, Earls perfectly captures the obsessive, self-conscious, confused state of mind that goes along with adolescence. A vibrant rendition of growing pains.
Publishers Weekly
Dan is a wonderful, complex character. Teen boys - and girls - will find much that they can relate to in this coming-of-age story.
School Library Journal
This Australian coming-of-age novel is both funny and poignant. As Dan fumbles through the process of forming a relationship with someone of the opposite sex, he also learns about making pesto, interpreting Romeo and Juliet, why almost all birds are one of the 48 shades of brown, and why his best course of action is just to be himself.
KLIATT --
show more
Our customer reviews
In 48 SHADES OF BROWN, Australian author Nick Earls comically portrays Dan in this coming-of-age story.
Dan, a high school student, boards with his crazy band-playing Aunt Jacq, 22, and her roommate, Naomi, an attractive pysch major at the Uni. Through his social and emotional innocence, Dan becomes infatuated with Naomi and her every movement, including her frequent sexual run-ins with her 'jerk' boyfriend, in turn devastating Dan.
Dan is very innocent, yet his sensitive and intellectual demeanor allows the reader to easily identify with him. He has intense social reflection throughout the novel, and only seems to be disrupted by his friend, Chris Burns, another inexperienced, yet porn-obsessed, friend.
The realness of the novel and the hilarious conclusion of the party allow for true connection into the complex character of Dan, along with providing for an entertaining read.
All those who have had to grow up will be able to relate. I thoroughly enjoyed this book, despite some of it being a bit slow at times. My only other gripe was the unfamiliar textual presentation, as the entire book consisted of Dan's introspection or what seemed to be him hearing others talk, which was put in italics, which I felt was a bit irritable at times throughout.
However, I'd recommend this one to anyone who has risen up in the sex-obsessed world we know and love.show more
by TeensReadToo
