Forgive Me, Leonard Peacock by Matthew Quick

Forgive Me, Leonard Peacock
by Matthew Quick

Leonard is a troubled soul. His parents are no longer together - his ex-rock star alcoholic father is no longer in the picture, and his fashion designer mother spends most of her time away from home with her French boyfriend. It is his 18th birthday, but nobody remembers. He is bullied at school by Asher Beale, one-time best friend until that dreadful life-changing incident. He is unhappy, and he sees no happiness in the future for himself either, so he makes the decision to take himself out of this world and into another, happier place - and take Asher Beale with him. And that's where his grandfather's P-38 gun that was used to kill a Nazi officer in World War II, comes into the picture. It is up to his 3 friends in the world - Herr Silverman his history and German teacher; Walt his Humphrey Bogart film loving neighbour; Lauren the beautiful Christian - to convince him that life is worth living. But will it be enough?

This is understandably a very sad story. Poor Leonard, even though he is highly intelligent, is seen as a weirdo by his classmates, so when he starts to spiral downwards no-one seems to notice because they think he is strange anyway. The school guidance counsellor remarks on his behaviour but when he laughs it off, so does she. You end up screaming at some of the characters to give him the help he needs, stop the inevitable from happening. Thankfully Herr Silverman is a lot more astute and aware and you hope you can rely on him to pull Leonard out of his suicidal hole.

There were a few annoying things in the story, the first being footnotes. I'm not a big fan of these, they seem to tear you away from the moment and when the story is so emotionally heavy, it takes a while to get back into it. The second is the sudden introduction of letters from the future. You wonder what on earth it is about, until it is explained a little further into the book. The third is the ending - I often seem disappointed by endings, but this one really annoys. See what you think yourselves.

Other than that, a really enjoyable, thoughtful, heartbreaking story about a taboo subject.

Mr Penumbra's 24-Hour Bookstore by Robin Sloan

Mr Penumbra's 24-Hour Bookstore
by Robin Sloan

I didn't quite know what to make of this. In a way, it was a shame that I read it right after The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt, because I loved that book so much it was going be hard to beat. I loved the idea of the story of Mr Penumbra - a bookshop that is open all day and all night, but hardly has any customers. The few customers it has act rather strangely and keep quoting what sounds like a Latin phrase to Clay, the young lad whose job it is to man the bookstore through the night. Using the help of a few of his friends, he discovers that many of the non-mainstream books kept in the shop are written in code. Once this code is broken, the secret to eternal life is revealed. But Clay doesn't want to have to read through all the books to solve the puzzle. One of his friends works at Google and she uses her technological wizardry to solve it the modern way. I think this is where the story lost me slightly. I wanted an oldy-worldy magical story of secrets and books, but instead I get thrown back into the real world of Google search, Kindles and e-books, and Amazon. So good concept, but not quite good enough to hold my excitement.