iBoy by Kevin Brooks

Title: iBoy
Author: Kevin Brooks
Year of Publication: 2010
Genre: Young Adult, Science Fiction
Pages: 288

First Line: "The mobile phone that shattered my skull was a 32GB iPhone 3GS."

Summary: Before the attack, Tom Harvey was just an average teenager. But a head-on collision with high technology has turned him into an actualized App. Fragments of a shattered iPhone are embedded in his brain. And they're having an extraordinary effect on his every thought.


 Because now Tom knows, sees, and can do more than any normal boy ever could.


But with his new powers comes a choice: To avenge Lucy, the girl he loves, will he hunt down the vicious gangsters who hurt her? Will he take the law into his own electric hands and exterminate them from the South London housing projects where, by fear and violence, they rule?


Not even his mental search engine can predict the shocking outcome of iBoy's actions.

Source: Back of book.

Review:  This is not my favorite Kevin Brooks novel.  But it isn't my least favorite, either.  Brooks rushes through iBoy in some ways and, unlike similar stories projected in film, iBoy does not have the advantage of montage, which seems to pop up in many superhero movies (think Spiderman as he discovers and refines his powers).  The concept of the novel was interesting enough, though the characters who carried it out were somewhat less interesting and complex than characters in previous novels by Brooks.  Nothing felt particularly out of place with dialogue, but overall, the book had a slightly manufactured feel which took away from what it could have been.  Maybe if it was longer and Brooks had taken more time to develop various pieces of the book, it would have been better.  
Worst part: Lack of complexity.

Best part:  The chapter numbers. Check those out -- they're super cool.

Grade: B-

Other Books by This Author: Darn, Being, Black Rabbit Summer, Candy, Kissing the Rain, Lucas, Martyn Pig, The Road of the Dead