BOOK REVIEW : BRUTAL SCHOOL TIES – THE PARKTOWN BOYS’ TRAGEDY
Reading Time: 2 minutes
“And I’ve tried to show who you are as a whole person.” – extract from Sam Cowen’s book
Until the moment I was halfway through Sam Cowen’s latest book “Brutal School Ties“, I was definitely going to send my son to boarding school when the time arrived. I envied my mates that had attended boarding school in the Natal Midlands. I yearned to experience life as a high school boarder and lived this life vicariously through my sisters who both attended boarding school.
Darren, who attended boarding school in high school, has always been very anti-establishment. Whenever I’d bring up the topic he would humor me, but always remained rooted on the side of “NO BOARDING“! A lot of this concern stemming from his own and that of his sister’s personal experiences while attending boarding school in the Free State. In one instance his sister lost consciousness in the hostel because one of the other girls was “play” strangling her!
On reaching the middle of this book, I had already decided that our son would NOT be attending boarding school without intensive and regular due diligence on our part. At least I am going to try…
Through her writing, Sam managed to place me in the hostel with the boarders, through her interviews with the different boys and their parents, revealing the emotional turmoil they each had to endure and would continue to face long after the book was finished.
This book is captivating and so engrossing that you’re not likely to want to put it down. Do you know how you can’t wait to watch the next episode of a good series on TV? Same same, but different! She has managed to get the reader to move from initially hating the school and what it had allowed to happen to feeling sorry for it at the end of the book. Likewise, the reader also gets to detest Collan Rex, the main protagonist and then empathise with him as you burrow your way through page after riveting page.
Yay/Nay – YAY- definitely recommend this book.
You can purchase a copy of the book at your local Exclusive Books, Loots, Reader’s Warehouse or Raru. I bought mine from Takealot
