1. Title: 48 Shades of Brown by Nick Earls, ISBN 0-618-45295-8, Houghton Mifflin Company, Boston, C 2004, $6.99, 274 pp.
     
  2. Genre: Fiction/Teenage boys; Grade level 9 and up
     
  3. Characters: Dan is a sixteen-year-old boy who goes to live with his aunt when his parents move to Geneva.  He wants to know about girls and what it’s like to kiss them and hold their hair back when they are going to throw up.  Jacq is Dan’s twenty-two-year-old aunt who he goes to live with; she is a lesbian rocker-type.   Naomi is Jacq’s nineteen-year-old roommate and a quirky second-year UNI student that works at a deli.  Chris Burns is Dan’s acne-prone best friend who is anxious to get a girl.   Phil is Naomi and Jacq’s landlord who is in love with Dan’s aunt.   Imogen is a first-year UNIi student.   Madge is Dan’s overprotective mother and Jacq’s sister; she frequently writes Dan postcards to catch up.   Dan’s father is a penny-pincher.
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  4. Plot:  The story takes place in Australia and depicts Dan’s changes into a life where girls and schoolwork are the main problems on a teenage boy’s mind.   He can’t stop thinking of Naomi, whom he has developed a crush on.  He goes to extreme lengths to impress her, including trying to learn all the fancy names of birds and all their different shades of brown, cooking pesto, because Naomi loves basil, and showing off his Romeo and Juliet essay that he thinks makes him sound intelligent, and which he is very proud of.  
     
  5. Touchy areas: The novel has issues of homosexuality and masturbation in it.
     
  6. Related titles: Love, Ghosts, and Facial Hair by Steven Herrik (2004); I Can’t Tell You by Hillary Frank (2004); Bucking the Sarge by Christopher Paul Curtis (2004)
     
  7. Movies: The Girl Next Door (2004)

Music: Love Song for No One by John Mayer (2001)

Photos: Fish tank scene from Romeo and Juliet- tpic1.jpg (www.romeoandjuliet.com/ setting/tragedy.html); basi.jpg (www.sunset.com/.../ Basil0702/Basil07021.html)

Websites: teenadvice.about.com/od/guystuff/ - 28k –(Just for Guys- Guy Stuff- Health Advice for Teen Boys)

Art: Teal Ducks by Robert Pow

Poems: Confusion by Cody Peterson; First Kiss by Hugh Cook

Classic works: Great Expectations by Charles Dickens

  1. Evaluation:  I really enjoyed reading this book.  I thought that it provided excellent insight into the mind of a teenage boy.    It dealt with issues teenage boys face and kept me interested and laughing.  I would rate the book a 9 out of 10.
     
  2. Reviewed by:  Amanda Clegg, University of Toledo, clegg_amanda@yahoo.com