English Slacker by Chris Morton-a review

ENGLISH SLACKER by Chris Morton

I have to admit but I had mixed feelings on the book, The English Slacker by Chris Morton. To be honest, it wasn’t my favorite book but I didn’t hate the book entirely. The book is told from the point of view of the main character which is Chambers; there is no first name or whatnot just Chambers. I would like to describe him as your typical 18 year old living in England. From the looks of it, he is newly finished with college and is spending his last summer free before he has to embark on adult life. Throughout the course of the book Chambers and his friends are always getting together to get drunk or in their words, pissed; smoke fags and dope; and just hang together. At first, I just thought how typical just a group of friends getting together during the summer.

Throughout the book, the events are very random and spaced out (or at least it felt that way to me). Sometimes I had a hard time telling whether it really happened for real, a dream or drug trip or if it was a flashback. I admit that having a hard time determining what state of mind Chambers was in did create a bit of a frustration to me when it came to following the story. So in a nutshell Chambers pretty much goes through a whole chain of events which leads him to remember bits of his memory before his best friend Colin died.

The weird thing is the chains of events Chambers go through are very familiar so when he finally recalls the events that led up to Colin’s death, the events really start to make sense. It’s like those suspense movies that start out in the end result but you go through the movie watching the events of the movie that led up to the beginning of the movie. That’s what the book felt like to me. I do like those types of movies but often time, it leaves with a feeling of frustration in the middle or meat of the movie which is exactly how I feel about the book.

I felt Chambers was very typical but at the same time I felt like he was wimp. I felt like he would smoke and drink all the time for the sake of him not wanting to face the reality of things such as his friend’s death and having to grow up. Sometimes I felt like he didn’t know what to do with himself a lot like if he was alone after work or something, he was always trying to find some friends to hang out with or go to the bar in hopes of running into someone he knew; I mean what is wrong with taking time to yourself and taking it easy? Sometimes I got the vibe that Chambers acted like he was afraid to be alone or something.

If I had to rate the book as in 5 being the best and 1 being the worse, I would rate this book a 2 and a half as in the book was okay. I felt like following him through the events was an intrigue leaving you interested to tag along for the trip but there was some demerits in the sense that the book was a little confusing to follow sometimes and I felt like Chambers was a very immature character.

Copy supplied by author.

Review by Xtina R