The Boy with Two Heads

by Andy Mulligan

Overview

The incredible story of a boy with two heads, from Andy Mulligan, the acclaimed author of Trash.
     How would you feel if you woke up and found another head growing out of your neck? A living, breathing, TALKING head, with a rude, sharp tongue and an evil sense of humour. It knows all your darkest thoughts and it's not afraid to say what it thinks... to ANYBODY. That's what happens to eleven-year-old Richard Westlake, and life becomes very, very complicated.
     Part thriller, part horror, part comedy — this is one of the most riveting novels about fear and friendship that you will ever read.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780552573474
Publisher:	Transworld Publishers Limited
Publication date:	10/01/2015
Pages:	400
Product dimensions:	5.00(w) x 7.70(h) x 1.00(d)
Age Range:	12 - 15 Years

About the Author

ANDY MULLIGAN was brought up in South London. He worked as a theatre director for ten years, before travels in Asia prompted him to retrain as a teacher. He has taught English and Drama in Britain, India, Brazil and the Philippines. Andy's novel Trash has been published in twenty-two languages and will soon be a major motion picture directed by Stephen Daldry and scripted by Richard Curtis. Andy Mulligan won the 2011 Guardian Children's Fiction Prize.

Editorial Reviews

   • "Mulligan certainly delivers in this extraordinary examination of grief... highly original, emotionally-charged black comedy / thriller. A worthy successor to Mulligan's excellent Trash." —Sally Morris, Daily Mail

From the Publisher

10/01/2015
Gr 6–10—This very long and painful slog features Richard, a Year Six British boy who undergoes a trauma and grows a paranoid and hate-filled second head, and the subsequent fallout from his/their awful behavior. Mulligan includes several extended, horrid, foul, and bigoted rants in the context of the schizophrenic second head lashing out. The underlying source of discord is his/their sense of subjugation to adult authority, personified by the cartoonish manipulative mad scientist psychologist/neurologist who pretends to help Richard/Rikki while actually plotting to harvest his/their brain. This book starts as delightfully camp—Richard is growing a second head and everyone is trying to treat him/them as normal—but the nebulous metaphor about a kid warring with himself as he tries to make peace with loss quickly devolves into a disorganized mess of unpleasant incidents with a protagonist who is unlikable and difficult to relate to. In the final 100 pages, Mulligan finally pulls things back together for an adventure-filled, friendship-heavy grand escape sequence. Language and context throughout are heavily British, which may add an additional sense of loss-in-translation for American audiences. VERDICT Black comedy with a creative hook, surely, but too unfocused and drawn out for most middle schoolers to bother getting through.—Rhona Campbell, Georgetown Day School, Washington, DC

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