The Turtle Boy - Kealan Patrick Burke.
Posted: 12 Feb 2015, 07:36
The Turtle Boy (Timmy Quinn Series#1) by Kealan Patrick Burke.
School is out and summer has begun. For eleven year old Timmy Quinn and his best friend Pete Marshall, the dreary town of Delaware Ohio becomes a place of magic, hidden treasure and discovery. But on the day they encounter a strange young boy sitting on the bank of Myers Pond a pond playground rumour says may hide turtles the size of Buicks everything changes. For it soon becomes apparent that dark secrets abound in the little community, secrets which come cupped in the hands of the dead, and in a heartbeat, Timmy and Pete’s summer of wonder becomes a season of terror, betrayal and murder.
The Turtle Boy is one of five books featuring Timmy Quinn. It’s a coming of age story with a very supernatural and dark twist. Sadly, I can’t really go into too much detail without giving out some spoilers as this is only a short story, so I will keep this as brief as possible.
I found Burke’s writing style to be a little odd at first – almost like he was trying to be somewhat poetic but I feel it fell a little short. I found myself becoming somewhat confused and bored through some parts but I got used to it pretty quickly and really fell in love with his writing style. Should you be thrown off by this, I promise you that if you persevere you will find that the second half of the book has a very creative cliff-hanger and some dark pasts are revealed.
Some of the characters seemed to be a little flat but I found that this improved throughout the book and again throughout the series. However I can say with certainty that Pete’s Dad came across very strong and I hated him almost instantly. After my initial problem with keeping up with Burke and his somewhat unbefitting wording for an 11 year old character, I couldn’t put this down and had to finish the whole series as soon as I could.
I initially believed that the target audience for this book was ‘Young Adult’ however I certainly wasn’t expecting the supernatural turn of the book and I had no clue just how dark and creepy things would become so I am on the fence for this one.
Overall I feel that Burke is an extremely talented writer and he has definitely gained himself a new fan. Despite getting off to a bit of an iffy start, I feel that Burke redeemed himself a little further into the book and set the reader up for some much unexpected twists and turns that carry on throughout the whole series.
I rate The Turtle Boy 4*/5.
School is out and summer has begun. For eleven year old Timmy Quinn and his best friend Pete Marshall, the dreary town of Delaware Ohio becomes a place of magic, hidden treasure and discovery. But on the day they encounter a strange young boy sitting on the bank of Myers Pond a pond playground rumour says may hide turtles the size of Buicks everything changes. For it soon becomes apparent that dark secrets abound in the little community, secrets which come cupped in the hands of the dead, and in a heartbeat, Timmy and Pete’s summer of wonder becomes a season of terror, betrayal and murder.
The Turtle Boy is one of five books featuring Timmy Quinn. It’s a coming of age story with a very supernatural and dark twist. Sadly, I can’t really go into too much detail without giving out some spoilers as this is only a short story, so I will keep this as brief as possible.
I found Burke’s writing style to be a little odd at first – almost like he was trying to be somewhat poetic but I feel it fell a little short. I found myself becoming somewhat confused and bored through some parts but I got used to it pretty quickly and really fell in love with his writing style. Should you be thrown off by this, I promise you that if you persevere you will find that the second half of the book has a very creative cliff-hanger and some dark pasts are revealed.
Some of the characters seemed to be a little flat but I found that this improved throughout the book and again throughout the series. However I can say with certainty that Pete’s Dad came across very strong and I hated him almost instantly. After my initial problem with keeping up with Burke and his somewhat unbefitting wording for an 11 year old character, I couldn’t put this down and had to finish the whole series as soon as I could.
I initially believed that the target audience for this book was ‘Young Adult’ however I certainly wasn’t expecting the supernatural turn of the book and I had no clue just how dark and creepy things would become so I am on the fence for this one.
Overall I feel that Burke is an extremely talented writer and he has definitely gained himself a new fan. Despite getting off to a bit of an iffy start, I feel that Burke redeemed himself a little further into the book and set the reader up for some much unexpected twists and turns that carry on throughout the whole series.
I rate The Turtle Boy 4*/5.