Bookseller Reviews
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Hold tight the man...
If Porter is a guitarist, this is him riffing. Letting us know that he can really shred. You get this sensation when reading his books of sound in the mout... READ MORE
A roller coaster of emotions
Wow! I am still amazed how Max Porter managed to squeeze so much into just about 100 pages. This is a book of contradictions: At once devastating and funny... READ MORE
Shy - troubled, hopeful, and bursting with energy.
Max Porter turns his remarkable writing skills to the story of Shy - a young man struggling to control the anger and impulses bubbling inside him while als... READ MORE
Tragic and hopeful all at once
An emotionally challenging read, however Porter's writing is flawless as always. Takes a little time to get used to the formatting, but it will click event... READ MORE
Painful, reflective, genius.
It’s like Porter has sliced Shy’s mind right down the middle so the reader can experience all the pain and confusion and guilt of his troubled young mind. ... READ MORE
A well -spent afternoon
I was sent this book in exchange for a fair review having previously read (and loved) both 'Grief is the Thing with Feathers' and 'Lanny'.
'Shy' is a pot... READ MORE
Max Porter strikes again
Literary genius honestly. An extremely traumatized and troubled young man walks into the night with a bag full of rocks strapped to his back. You really fe... READ MORE
Full-hearted, masterful storytelling
With the gritty realism of a John Cooper Clark poem, Shy captures the end of the century disenchantment, the desperate loneliness of a character unwanted, ... READ MORE
Poetic, Sad and Strange
Porter's books are all strange little creations. Tiny, intricate novellas with such depth. You read a hundred pages and feel like you've travelled into som... READ MORE
A whirlwind journey into the mind of a troubled teenage boy
This book is a whirlwind journey into the mind of a troubled teenage boy, struggling with violent tendencies and not knowing how to respond to the emotions... READ MORE
Substance in earthy style
This probably the most straightforwardly a novel of Porter's three full 'novels' so far. However, that only goes to show that, even without his alterations... READ MORE
Mesmerising
'Shy' had me gripped from the moment I opened its pages to the moment I closed them. I devoured the whole thing in one sitting, utterly mesmerised with the... READ MORE
A sad and brilliant read
Having read Max Porter's other novellas I believed I knew what I was getting myself into, but this was so much more. It's interesting and weird, I've never... READ MORE
An emotional gut punch
Shy is a book about teenage turmoil. It is weird and wonderful. It's scatty and confusing. Those few hours of a troubled teenage boy's life are a gut punch... READ MORE
There's no-one doing it like Max Porter
It's hard to think of another author writing today who has carved out a creative voice as distinct as Porter, and he's doing it so damn well. In Shy, a tee... READ MORE
A Triumph of Empathy
Shamefully for a professional bookseller, this was my first encounter with Max Porter. I get it.
What a writer this man is; inventive, nuanced, artful. B... READ MORE
A troubled youth
Max Porter is such an excellent writer and he really brings something unique to the table in his effortless writing style and the way he plays with words a... READ MORE
Nature the Dark Comforter
Porter’s novels find modern society lacking in so many ways and in Shy, as in Lanny and Grief is the Thing with Feathers, nature in all its fetid, malodoro... READ MORE
Creeps up on you like a canine, hunched
The building of this character's life in such a short, explosive cluster of pages is intoxicating. Rhythmic, dark, pleading, unflinching, bare. Stopped me ... READ MORE
Another stunning book from Max Porter
Max Porter is one of the few authors I will preorder as soon as I hear about a book coming out from them, and this didn’t disappoint.
Set in the mid 90s... READ MORE
Synopsis
Poetic and experimental, moving and powerful: Max Porter’s short, intense novella plunges you into the mind of troubled teen Shy and the voices that surround him: the people who hurt him and the people who love him, as he wanders into a single night.
This is the story of a few strange hours in the life of a troubled teenage boy.
You mustn't do that to yourself Shy. You mustn't hurt yourself like that.
He is wandering into the night listening to the voices in his head: his teachers, his parents, the people he has hurt and the people who are trying to love him.
Got your special meds, nutcase?
He is escaping Last Chance, a home for 'very disturbed young men', and walking into the haunted space between his night terrors, his past and the heavy question of his future.
Publisher information
- Publisher: Faber & Faber
- ISBN: 9780571380466
- Number of pages: 128
- Dimensions: 198 x 129 x 9 mm
- Weight: 237g
- Languages: English
Customer Reviews
View allReflections of adolescence in the smoke addled twilight..
Shy takes place over a few hours of a troubled teenage boy as he reflects and tries to make convoluted sense of his past, present and future.
Wandering i... READ MORE
Great Book Group Read
Thank you to the publishers for this early review copy, I think this will be a great read for a book group.
Perhaps it will split the crowd? It is very dif... READ MORE
Escape into a world you know and don’t know
Looked forward to this being released knowing that the writing would not disappoint. Being able to jump feet first into this boys life for a few short hour... READ MORE
Another brilliant novella from the author of Lanny
Max Porter’s magical (in all sense) “Lanny” was one of my favourite books of 2019 (alongside Ali Smith’s “Spring”) and should have gone much further than ... READ MORE
Challenging and poetic
Max Porter challenges every reader. His books take us to a part of the human condition that is often “ different to convention “ ; he provokes us to explor... READ MORE
A tad disappointing
Another disappointing read from Porter. This book just isn't of the same quality as either Lanny or Grief is the Thing with Feathers.
For me, this book wa... READ MORE
Raw challenging and poetic
Max Porter challenges every reader. His books take us to a part of the human condition that is often “ different to convention “ ; he provokes us to explor... READ MORE
Max Porter is a spellbinding wordsmith
Shy is a boy boiling over in emotions. Teenage angst, hormonal rage, acute embarrassment, warmth, love and mental discord melt together. Max Porter’s words... READ MORE
A visceral, redemptive masterpiece about the fragility of adolescent mental health
A masterpiece about personality disorders and in the same class of empathetic writing as ‘The Catcher in the Rye’. Pulsating and mesmerising. A wake-up cal... READ MORE