Bricking It

Alright, I had just watched over two hours of The Jeremy Kyle Show, so my brain was half attached to wondering why anyone would want to date a man whose slept with your friend and their mother… anyway, that’s my excuse for this not being written brilliantly. This is my (this is Heather by the way, should probably have said that earlier) review on Bricking it.

Author: Nick Spalding

Published: December 2015

Publisher: Lake Union Publishing

My rating: 4.5/5

My motivation behind buying this book mainly lies behind the lovely £1 price tag on the kindle store. It is most definitely not the type of book that you label as a poetic and deeply philosophical; it won’t make you hum and ponder the meaning of life, but it will make you laugh and smile, which is good enough for me. The book is told through the perspective of two siblings who have inherited a derelict farmhouse from their grandma and decide to take up the challenge of renovating it. The writing style is endearing, concise yet full of strong character and humour; ‘There could be anything in there. Rats… spiders… the Grim Reaper.’

The highlight of the novel was Pat The Cow and her relationship with Daniel. Pat The Cow is a legendary cow (you probably guessed that by her name) that Daniel is convinced has supernatural powers. She seems to inhabit the house when they first arrive. She somehow appears one time, surprising Daniel when he is wandering upstairs singing Taylor Swift’s Blank Space. I don’t really know how to sum up the friendship between a cow and a man, so I hope these quotations do a better job than I can supply:

‘Pat The Cow is obviously part ninja, and I don’t want to end up skewered on the end of an expertly thrown ninja cow dagger.’

‘But we are dealing with a very special cow here. One able to vanish without a trace, like Batman.”

‘It is Pattus Cowisicus, Roman deity of death and destruction. She has come to claim me! Claim me for her own!

‘It’s Pat The Cow, she’s Pat The Cow. If you’re in trouble, she’ll come right now. She catches thieves, she catches thugs. She’ll tell her your dad if you grow drugs.’

‘”Moo,” Pat The Cow says, the menace dripping from every syllable. Yes, I know moo has only one syllable, but Pat The Cow laughs in the face of your stupid grammatical rules.’

Another impressive aspect of the novel was the bundle of vivid personality put into each character. The relationship between the builders was another thing that made the book easy to visualise; I adored the nicknames that Fred used for Daniel, like ‘my old cupcake’. I also loved the sibling friendship; they were blunt, honest and protective.

I was absolutely thrilled by the ending – it’s really hard to find an author that can write about love without tarnishing it with pretentious and cliché lines topped with a bit of selfishness. So when I read the last few pages, I was chuffed to see one character do something entirely selfless without requesting a reward or requited feelings, he just wanted to make the person he loved happy. Also, Spalding includes a homosexual relationship as another element of the novel which, as Shani has stressed before, used to be quite rare. There are far darker views of love expressed as well, one of the protagonists having gone through a rather abusive marriage. It is a massive challenge for an author to include such serious matters in a light-hearted book. Though for this reason and the incidents themed around… adult subjects (as an after note I’d like to add that no, this is not a reference to explicit sexy scenes, that’d be gross, just some adult humour) perhaps an audience of over twelve would be more suitable.

What could have been better? Well I would have loved some visual aid to the book – whilst Spalding somehow manages to provide enough imagery to form a mental image of the house in the reader’s head, I like pretty pictures. My rating is notably high because I left the book feeling satisfied, the ending was sweet and had nice morals to it.

To conclude on the book, it’s a beautiful distraction to make one forget about whatever woes they may have. In case the several synonyms for ‘funny’ haven’t been noticed, the book is hilarious. Usually whilst reading, I’ll puff an extra quantity of air out when something funny occurs, but this time I actually did really laugh. Luckily I only read it at home else I fear I’d have gained some rather strange looks. So, because of the adult themes I’d recommend this to most people over the age of twelve - I must reiterate the fact it costs ONE POUND on kindle at the moment, so buy it! Of course, anyone that dislikes comedy should probably also stay away from the book.

I should be uploading a review on The Invisible Man soon since I’m about a third of the way through it and am slightly hooked. You never know, one day I might even torture the blog to some of my creative writing. Please have a read of my fellow readers blog entries and their own pieces; Shani and Lydia are excellent writers!