The Boy Who Couldn't Sleep and Never Had to

There are two books I've read this year about teenagers, both written in the first person: this one and James Fuerst's novel "Huge". Where Fuerst's "Huge" is flat, unreadable tripe, Pierson's "The Boy" is a brilliant, engrossing stunner which shines with authenticity and almost embarrasses with teenage angst in photo realism. The author captures the spirit of male teen years as if he's still there. His knack for creating that world - the high school cliques, the older brother's odd, mean-spirited charm, the latch-key afterschool loneliness - all are experienced here with emotional clarity and each rings painfully true. The story's protagonest is Darren, a withdrawn, gawky high schooler who is more interested in drawing characters for his on-going fictional creation than meeting girls - or, for that matter, meeting anyone. Enter Eric, another mysterious loner in seemingly the same mold. The two form a halting, stuttered friendship that grows stronger each day. We're witness to this bromance as it builds with silly sweetness in a unique dance. But just as the reader falls into sleep-walking cadence, there's a twist. Pierson jolts us awake as he artfully weaves in a subplot of scifi and soon we're running. The book creatively morphs into a male teen's wetdream of fiction-becomes-reality complete with a dose of sex, a few bad guys and ultimately an adventure worthy of the screen. Despite my better intentions, I was hooked. Ignoring mail and piles of work on my desk, I read the book in 36 hours. It would be easy to dismiss Pierson's "Boy" as yet another guys-only coming-of-age pulp fiction, but I can't do that. The writing is simply too honest and the story, though slightly implausable, is real-sounding enough to involve the reader on a level that surpasses works by better-known authors. This is truly a remarkable book and I doubt there's another in this genre that does a superior job of rendering the teen scene - complete in it's dialogue and emotion - with Pierson's deft realism. Simply put: Buy this book, it's a great read. EDIT TO ADD: This book is not listed as Teen Fiction or YA and should not be viewed as such. It is clearly for adults. Other reviewers here seem to have problems with the sex, drugs and violence that the book includes but fail to see how these salient factors make the book more real. Without them, it would be another boring Afterschool Special.

Eric and Darren are two high school invisibles who bond over Darren's drawings and Eric's secret: Eric is the boy who couldn't sleep and never had to. Darren's observations and narrating voice are hilarious and spot-on as far as diction. The "voice" is as close to perfect as I can imagine for a teenage boy. All the side characters, in particular Darren's brother, are perfectly drawn; the high school students, the mother who just got tired of being a wife and mom and began to live as if she were neither while still married, the dad whose only real question of his sons is "Got your phone on you?", and the hectic older brother whose accents, drug use and sexual misadventures echo through his brother's life in a menacing but reassuring way. Is it a funny book? It is an EXTREMELY funny book when Darren is commenting on his peers, or describing his own social awkwardness. I'd throw in some quotes but there are too many swear words for the review to be published in the passages I love most. And the universe Darren and Eric craft, while eye-rollingly absurd, is also very true-to-form for high school boys. I was more charmed by the drawings than the taxonomy of the created world, because the art is credibly the work of an untrained high school boy. In fact, Darren knows the limitations of his own skills. He draws people standing, looking straight ahead, and prefers to draw glasses on faces because the eyes give him trouble. But his drawings are enough to fuel and express his inner visions. When those inner visions take over his life, it's shocking and yet somehow believable. This is a more complex novel than many of the reviews up here seem to suggest. I read it as a series of a young man's awakenings; first to the power of his own creativity, then to love and sex, then to the idea of manhood, then to his own capacity for cruelty and finally, and finally into a very sad understanding of just how corrupt the world can be. He can't awaken from this final revelation, and it makes this book tragic, not comic. There is a lot of humor, but this is not a madcap teen romp with science fiction overtones. This is a very sad story about a young man's complete loss of innocence, not because he does drugs and has sex, but because he is done a great injustice at the hands of the larger world and must do what it demands of him in order to stay alive. But telling his story is in its own way a subversive statement of bravery and faith, and offers the hope of change. Very highly recommended.

DC Pierson is absolutely fun to read. His two teen misfits are simultaneously totally believable even though one of them has never slept in his life. Darren (the artist) and his outsider friend Eric build a budding friendship over the comic/graphic novel/movie/tv series/media empire they're sketching and drawing with robots, mutant aliens, and evil agents. Playing video games and staying up all night is just part of the fun until Eric first confesses that he's never slept, then convinces Eric that this unbelievable trait is true. Darren and Eric's friendship grows, Darren protects (and betrays) Eric. Darren finds his first girlfriend. The girlfriend betrays Darren. Eric betrays Darren. The story itself is captivating. Pierson's writing flows and pulls you along. The characters are somehow believable even though Eric has the most unbelievable trait of never sleeping and never being tired. The ending may be a little too sci-fi for some readers' taste but for me it is enough of a good conspiracy theory mixed with the paranormal to be fun. After reading this, I'm hoping this will be the first of many novels from Pierson.

This book was nothing like I expected, but it was so much better than anything I anticipated. It was a coming of age story meets science fiction with hilarious adolescent humor and a distinctly clever voice. Eric and Darren become fast best friends, developing a science fiction movie trilogy/graphic novel. Eventually Eric confesses his most guarded secret - he doesn't sleep. Darren is amazed by Eric's "power," and the two boys deliberate over its causes and advantages. When a conflict causes a rift in their friendship, Darren feels betrayed and lets slip Eric's secret. The consequences are more sinister and imaginative than anything I could have predicted. This was really a fun book that I consumed in a single day. Darren's narration was amusing, the dialogue was genuine and the premise was engaging. It was a singularly creative and clever debut novel.

When I was a teenager, we were still writing down other people's phone numbers on our hands or a cocktail napkin at parties. So I am clearly the wrong target age for this book. Even so, I enjoyed it. I'm not sure what genre it fits into, but it's a coming of age story, like "King Dork," only more streamlined and with magical realism. The author also did the illustrations and, according to the jacket, made a feature film with his comedy troupe. The book itself is about a teen artist (not "draw-er") named Darren, who with his new friend Eric, decide to collaborate on a movie trilogy and a series of novels, and spend hours on desgning extras like the soundtrack and movie merchandise. Eric is a pretty typical nerd, Darren thinks, until he reveals a secret, which is already revealed in the book title. Throw in a girl that both of them like, as well as sinister government officials who want to study Eric, plus yet another "superpower" and you have a quirky, original story. Unlike so many books, it kept me in suspense until the very end. If this was a CD, there would likely be a warning: Explicit Lyrics on it. The crude language and references to casual sex didn't bother me (though it's amazing how nothing has to be censored anymore), but might be offensive to someone else. It depends; after all, that's how kids really talk. .