Kook by Chris Vick

Living in Cornwall, I'm surrounded by beautiful beaches and crazy surfers, and I love a story that features that adrenalin-fuelled sport. I've already read and loved Blue by Lisa Glass, a story about surfing set in Newquay, so I was looking forward to reading Kook, also set in Cornwall.

The author, Chris Vick, works for a whale and dolphin conservation charity and is a keen surfer, and that truly comes through in his first novel. The word 'kook' is surfer slang for a learner or a wannabe. In the book, 16 year old Sam is exactly that. He's just moved back to Cornwall with his mum and little sister - they used to live there when he was younger, but his father drowned and his mother couldn't bear to live there with the memories. Now they're back to be near Sam's grandma - she has cancer and may not have long to live. Next door to Sam lives Jade, with her dad. They both go to the same school, so slowly Sam gets to know Jade and her friends - all super keen surfers. Not wanting to be left out, Sam teaches himself to surf, all the while doing research on a giant wave that no-one has yet ridden, called the Devil Horns - a wave that could prove disaster for anyone who attempts it.

I quite enjoyed the book, but unfortunately there were a couple of things which spoiled it for me - the profanity, and the drug use. There was a huge amount of both in this book, and it came across that there was nothing wrong with it. I know teenagers these days use bad language fairly often, but you don't want to have to read it on every page of a book. And as for taking drugs, the characters again did it on such a regular basis, it was made to seem that it was ok to do it.

As a bookseller, I have to be very careful when recommending books to certain ages. Because of the content of Kook, I will have to make sure I don't recommend it to anyone under the age of 15, which surely cuts out a huge audience for the author. I always think it's such a shame that a certain aged-audience may be denied a book purely because of bad language or other bad content. It's not necessary in a story, people don't like hearing it or reading it, so why write it?

The last few chapters were very emotional - weirdly, the chapters I enjoyed the most. If Jade was a bit nicer, and there was less bad content in the book, I may have enjoyed it more.