Ostrich

Matt Greene

If you want a book which makes you laugh and cry at the same time, this is it. Alex is 12 and has a brain tumour. He tells his story in typical teenage style as he struggles to understand what is happening to him. With the aid of a friend he tries to solve the mystery of his parents' odd behaviour. Are they getting divorced? And why does his beloved hamster seem thinner? Bursting with humour but you will need tissues at the end.

Extract

When the anaesthetic practitioner came to visit he weighed me like I was a fish he'd just caught and asked me if I had a phobia of needles, which I told him I didn't because a phobia is an irrational fear of something and my fear of needles is 100% justified, (I don't understand why people insist they have phobias if things like heights and snakes and small spaces and open spaces and other people when all those things can kill you. I hate how people think that not walking under ladders makes you superstitious when it's actually just common sense. You wouldn't call someone superstitious if they didn't want to live under a flight path. (I am not superstitious)).

Parallels