Readers who, like myself, haven’t read the first the volumes of the journals of Nick Twisp (bound together in one five hundred page volume in Youth in Revolt), will find themselves at a disadvantage when starting out to read Revolting Youth. There is a brief synopsis of the story so far at the start, but the plot has many twists and turns, so it’s not always easy to follow exactly what’s going on. It’s a little like a Shakespearean comedy in its implausible plot involving amazingly credulous side characters and bizarre turns of events. But that’s not necessarily a bad thing.

Fourteen year old Nick Twisp has more resourcefulness than James Bond, and he gets out of pursuit from law-enforcement agencies, angry parents, livid duped boyfriends, and horny high school girls. He is a master of disguise, an entrepreneur, and a boy ready to do whatever it takes to get what he wants, which is mostly to be with his one and only love and have sex with her. Nick is an interesting character, being funny, worldly, and utterly unprincipled, even though he talks as if he were an honorable person. He is a budding author and he an obsessive journal writer, often penning several entries each day.

This comic novel is a fast funny read. Nick is smart and extremely rude to many people, with many cutting observations about his enemies, of which there are many. It’s not a book with any great insight into the human condition or even teenagers today, unless you count the fact that teen boys are obsessed by girls. Nick has a way with language, and his humble arrogance makes for a pleasing paradox. Nick Twisp is an unusual character in modern fiction, because his eccentric chivalry is a little old fashioned. Revolting Youth is not so much an adolescent fantasy as the fantasy of what a fifty year old Machiavelli would do if he found himself in the body of a teenage boy.

Categories: Fiction