Review: True Friends - Robert Collins

Searching for a coming-of-age novel ? A novel about discovering who you really are ?

Review: True Friends - Robert Collins - August 2011

When I first saw the cover of this book, It didn't grab me as much but then when I looked at it again it made me wonder whether the author was going for a yearbook style cover as that what it reminds me of.

The year is the 1980's , gone is the big bright patterns and now it's fashion is being replaced by denim mini-skirts , leather outfits and neon colours. It's the year of Dungeons and Dragons and the beginning of role-playing games. 

In a way , I didn't really expect much from this book but I am glad now as I loved it and enjoyed it thoroughly. The novel introduces two main characters and their different cliques , in terms of school social-standing , they are from two very different categories. One is the popular crowd, filled with all the beautiful people, the cheerleaders and the jocks - the one's that rule the school and the other crowd are the nerds , the ones who are labelled freaks and geeks, the ones who love computers, role-playing games , the ones that are bullied and made to do the homework of the jocks.

In True Friends, we are about to discover just how easy it can be for two very different people to become fast and TRUE friends , nothing dodgy and sexual but the definition of what it means to be a real friend. 

In the popular crowd we have Alison, she is the girlfriend of Quarterback Todd who is making Ray - a freshman do his homework for him. To Alison , Todd has really changed . He has gone from a genuine nice girl to a stereotypical mean jock .  In the other crowd, we have David - he is the one-of-a-kind , everybody's friend and a definite individualist. He doesn't care what people think and he writes in regulary to the paper , his thoughts . When he hears that his friend Ray is being bullied by Todd , he confronts Alison and soon the pair are going back and forth between conversations about Ray and Todd.

As the story continues, we watch Alison's and David's lives and who they are in high school start to change and soon they discover that they don't have to be who people want them to be and why should cliques remain as cliques.

This is an amazing story about how two different people from two sides of the school tracks rebelled against the world of clique-dom in the schoolyard and become the true definition of friends.