My Name Is Denise Forrester

by nick-brooks

A first novel by a young Scot writing in the footsteps of Alan Warner and Irvine Welsh. The most immediately endearing feature of Nick Brook's first novel is its a feisty, troublesome, spirited girl with her childhood eating disorder (only white things basically) and her teenage crushes, she is abandoned by her mother and tormented by her sister, hopeless at school but despite all that original and memorable and identifiable. She's the archetypal strange child, growing up in Glasgow tenements in the 80s with her indulgent and eccentric grandmother, while her policeman father and strategically ill mother battle it out at home. In to the story of Denise is woven other stories, fictions spun by her grandmother about witches and fallen women, stories of the streets that Denise and her grandmother stalk, together, murder and daily violence forming a disconcerting background to shopping and school. Nick Brooks is a distinctive talent with great potential. His voice is strong and lyrical and clear.

Genres: Fiction

288 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2005

Reviews

[Kate Gould · Rating 1 out of 5]

Denise Forrester is a lonely, misunderstood child, struggling with playground bullies and a difficult – if, sometimes, amusingly eccentric – home life. It’s a familiar scenario with potential for both comedy and poignancy, but Brooks appears so smitten with his own wordiness that I frequently wished I could send him to the nearest branch of Over-Writers Anonymous.

Cut through the verbosity and it’s possible to see the hardship Denise suffers, but it’s difficult to have much sympathy for someone so determinedly dysfunctional and who, despite allegedly hating her tormentors, goes out of her way to retain her status as a weird child.

As a debut novel, it is not without merit. Brooks’ dialogue is well-written and he occasionally gives a playful twist to his language. His mistake is cramming in every literary device he can think of with the result that what could have been an unusual and quirky novel has ended up a mess.

[Serra Kamanga · Rating 2 out of 5]

It took a long while for me to read this book. It was ok in it's own way. I have difficulty abandoning a book so I took the journey to the last page.
I'd have to say that it was a little difficult trying to read the book. It is a little different and has it's own style that took a bit of time to get used to. There a few books like that, some please me in the end, some disappoint, but this one was just ok I guess.