Starter for Ten by David Nicholls- Book Review
Title: Starter for Ten (also A Question of Attraction)
Author: David Nicholls
Publisher: Villard Books
Publish Date: 2003
Rating: 3.5/5
Summary(blurb): The year is 1985. Brian Jackson, a working-class kid on full scholarship, has started his first term at university. He has a dark secret--a long-held, burning ambition (stoked by his late father) to appear on the wildly popular TV quiz show University Challenge--and now, finally, it seems the dream is about to become reality. He's made the school team, and they've completed the qualifying rounds and are limbering up for their first televised match. (And, what's more, he's fallen head over heels for one of his teammates, the beautiful, brainy, and intimidatingly posh Alice Harbinson.) Life seems perfect and triumph inevitable--but as his world opens up, Brian learns that a little knowledge can be a dangerous thing.
**This book review may contain spoilers**
The basic narrative of Starter For Ten follows Brian Jackson as he 'does college life' for his first year of university; his social and academic fumbles, preparing for University Challenge (a British TV quiz show), and dealing with his friends and family back at home. In university Brian falls hard for Alice Harbinson, who is also on the University Challenge team, but he isn't that socially savvy. He makes quite a few mistakes, rectified seemingly by luck. I usually give books pretty high ratings, but this one was lacking in especially the plot and character department, although it had a good enough setting.
I felt like the characters were a bit weak in this novel; most of them were flat, one-sided characters who only interacted on the surface level with Brian.
Well first of all, before anyone else, Brian is the kind of character you never, ever want to become and you feel so bad for that some times you don't even want to continue reading just to stop being told of his social fumbles. He is misunderstood by many people, he himself misunderstands many people, his jokes fall flat, he is socially awkward and makes some of the worst decisions he can make, he is extremely unlucky, the list goes on and on. Every move he makes brings him into a bad situation where he is misunderstood or he makes a terrible mistake (usually both). In situations that are going pretty excellently Brian still manages to fumble the whole thing-- and there are repercussions for the mistake. Major repercussions (such as a friendship falling out, losing trust, etc). It's like the author David Nicholls is actively pummeling Brian into the ground-- his only highs come out of luck, and the highs build up for the sole purpose of being torn down. The relationship with Alice? Torn down. A night with Spencer? Torn down. A first date? Torn down. Bad acne? Gets worse. University Challenge? Absolutely shredded to subatomic particles.
I suppose the fact that I dislike Brian getting pummeled so much attests to the author's ability to make readers cheer for the main characters-- however, it still doesn't make up for the fact that Brian's failures were so frequent and ubiquitous that the big ending surprise was predictable (hint: it's a massive failure). I previously said that the plot was quite lacking; this is because it mostly felt like the plot was there to smash Brian's face over and over again. The author may have intended it for comedy, and many readers said they found it just hilarious and ridiculous, but for me I just wanted Brian to earn some kind of victory for himself. I just wanted him to stop being so stupid, to stop getting drunk and make fifty blunders he can't rectify. As I've said before, all of Brian's high moments come from chance events-- Alice feeling bad for him, Colin getting hepatitis, et cetera. He earns none of them. I just wanted him to have even a small victory moment where he triumphs via his own actions, not brought emotionally high by the author only to plummet again. I don't know if I feel like this simply because I'm going to be a first-year university student in a short time (more than a year left, but a year is quite short), or if the character was written relatably.
As for other characters, most of them were flat characters-- Take Alice Harbinson, who despite being a major character of the book, merely fulfills a 'pretty face' role for Brian to develop an instant crush on. Or look at Patrick, who is nothing more than a massively annoying brat whose only job is to crush Brian's dreams and murder his reputation. I personally didn't see character development for many of these side characters, even those who were quite important to the plot-- and because I consider characters a lot in book reviews, it was particularly disappointing.
All in all, Starter for Ten is an okay novel that just wasn't for me. Although the author's intention may have been to make people laugh from Brian's multiple ridiculous failures, I just wanted Brian to earn a triumph for once.
I would recommend this book for grade 8 and up, it's got some strong language and tangled relationships involving people who get very drunk at a party. Which is not the wisest thing you can do in university.
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