Apples – Richard Milward

 

 

 

Why I chose it: Oooo but the cover is so beguiling! More than that, I have a soft spot for British books written by men with cute adolescent male protagonists. Do I need any more reason than that?

General plot: Meet Adam and Eve, two players in an English high school scene full of drugs, sex and the quest for “true love”. Well, I take that back; Eve is fully part of the scene but Adam is more of a silent watcher in the movie-star lives that his classmates seem to lead. Eve and her friends are self proclaimed goddesses, the wet dream of every boy who comes their way. Most nights are spent dropping E at the local clubs, scoring free drinks, and deciding who would be the better shag. Of her friends Eve shows the most promise at being somewhat human, perhaps because her mother is dying of lung cancer. This doesn’t stop her from having a good time though she does give up smoking and stays away from all boys who smoke as well.

Adam is the odd-looking, pimply child of an abusive father and a somewhat saggy and washed out mother. He spends his time giving in to his obsessive-compulsive tendencies, listening to the Beatles, and trying to win Eve’s attention. His goal is to drink more and lose his virginity (preferably to Eve), which is hard to do when you’re a scraggly teenage boy who has about two friends and gets caught beating off in the attic by his father. With the help of a brawl and a good female friend, Adam slowly starts integrating with the Eve crowd, though is painfully self-conscious about it every step of the way.  

The Writing Style: The story is told by several…er…characters. Of course there’s Adam and Eve, with occasional commentary from ancillary characters. Every so often Milward gives us a first-person description as seen by a streetlamp, a butterfly, etc. Beyond keeping me turning the pages, the different viewpoints made the story more dimensional. If only everything could be told in such 3D….I am somewhat inspired to write my journal entries from the viewpoint of my lamp.

Why I loved it: As I am still mentally stuck in the teenage years, I love stories about kids still trying to find their way in life. Adam is completely honest (such as when he worries that his maroon shirt looks dorky) and is still innocent enough that he spends a night alone with a drunk Eve doing nothing more than watching her breathe under the covers. Eve has the irrational lack of care that seems to be common to people who are otherwise occupied with better parties, clothes, and boys than the rest of the world. She worries about her mother’s cancer but, like everything at that age, the cancer seems curable and her mother will live forever and Eve is okay to keep going with her life. Reading their thoughts on paper was like reading the journals of my former self. Too often authors forget what being a kid was about and create these flat characters that could have come out of an alien movie. Adam and Eve are someone you definitely know as real and it makes their struggle so much more interesting.

Honest love stories are my favorite kind, and that’s what this was. For you romantic freaks out there, there’s no happily ever after or clean-cut ending. This is a love story told in actions and thoughts and it somehow beautiful against the backdrop of illegal substances and teenage angst. The usual issues are addressed: STDs, unwanted pregnancies, the dangers of illegal substances, and how boys (more so than girls) can be assholes. It’s all presented relatively subtly, with the same emphasis as, say, describing that a character has toast every morning and one time it gave her an upset stomach. All of it just contributes to the muck that Adam and Eve are willing to wade through to get to each other. Despite their rambunctious surroundings, they are really just two people who are very alone and looking for something to keep them afloat.

Similar books: At times I was reminded of A Clockwork Orange, though Apples is much softer around the edges. Girl also comes to mind because of the whole drugs-and-clubs scene. The review on the back cover said something about “Catcher in the Rye meets Arctic Monkeys”, which I suppose would be a pretty accurate comparison.

Conclusion: Short read, but very well worth it. Don’t worry about feeling old; At the end you will only be glad that you’re out of the high school scene. All allegory aside, this is a great story about two kids who want to figure out what the hell is going on.