THE TRUE TALE OF THE MONSTER BILLY DEAN TELT BY HISSELF.

THE TRUE TALE OF THE MONSTER BILLY DEAN TELT BY HISSELF by DAVID ALMOND.

BACK COVER BLURB: I WOS A SECRIT SHY AND TUNGTIED EMPTYHEDED THING.

I WAS TORT TO READ and rite and spell by my TENDA littl muther & by MR Mc Caufrey the butcha & by MISSUS MALONE AND HER Gosts. SO I AM NOT CLEVA, SO PLEASE FORGIV MY FOLTS AND MY MISTAYKS.

I AM THE WON that GLARES INTO YOUR HARTS & THAT PROWLS INSYDE YOR DEEPIST DREMES.

WONCE I WAS The ANJEL CHILDE.

NOW I AM THE MONSTER.

JUST READ AND LISSEn AND TAKE NOTE.

LET the words enter yor BLUD & BOANS.

I AM BILLY DEAN.

THIS IS THE TRUTH.

THIS IS MY TALE.

FIRST SENTENCE {1- The Hart Of Everything: The Start Of It}: I am told I wil lern how to rite the tale by riting it.

MEMORABLE MOMENT {Page 213}: Soon enuf thers crutches hangin from Blinkbonnys wals. Thers spectacls on piles of stoans. Thers bottls of pills and choobs of oyntment & bandajes & hearin ayds.

MY THOUGHTS: The tale of Billy Dean, a young boy (a miracle/miracl worker, a 'favoured child' - or is he?) trapped in a room with his mother by a father who fills his son's head with mysterious tales until one day when ....

Oh dear! Too weird for my taste ... If indeed weird is a legitimate summing up of a book. I've tried original and different but somehow these don't seem to fully epitomise my feelings in quite the same way.

Written in a way that I can only describe as a sort of mish-mash comprising phonetically spelt words and 'text speech' that, along with the use of the ampersand instead of 'and', I found gimmicky at best, totally infuriating at worst. The book took longer to read than it would otherwise and that was after I had been given the advice that rather than try to decipher it I read it quickly to the point of almost skim reading it - sounds odd but it did actually work.

Not sure just who the book is aimed at either. Certainly not for children. Without giving too much away (I hope) I think Billy dissecting mice (or should I say 'mise'?) and a bird with scissors and a knife (sorry, 'sissors' and a 'nife') might well have put pay to that in the eyes of many a parent. And yet almost not 'grown-up' enough to appeal to, well, grown-ups, I suspect that with its 'text speak' style of writing it may well appear more to a Young Adult market. And then again, with its penchant for religious subversion perhaps not.

A bit like the peasant unable to see the Emperor's New Clothes I was left feeling a bit stupid .... was I missing something, was I supposed to glean some deeper meaning/understanding of the events and, if so, of what?