Chapter by Chapter

The premise for Half my Facebook Friends are Ferrets by author JA Buckle was interesting and hooked my interest. As a teen the same age as the novel’s protagonist Josh I thought that I might be able to relate to most of the things that Josh would go through, see or say. I wasn’t sure what to expect from the novel and have to say that after finishing it,Half my Facebook Friends are Ferrets is a very unique coming of age story about a boy just trying to fit in and get through high school.

In Half my Facebook Friends are Ferrets the novel’s main character Josh is obsessed with metal and rock and roll. His father isn’t around anymore and his pet ferret seems to understand him a lot more than his mother ever will. Josh’s dream is to buy his dream guitar, go to a real rock concert and live his dreams. That’ll have to wait of course. Josh gets a job at one of the local diners, eying the girl of his dreams while he tries to scrape up some cash. Dealing with high school drama, the struggle of trying to make friends and discovering who he really is—Josh documents his entire year in a comically written journal.

The overall story for Half my Facebook Friends are Ferrets was good. I laughed, I smiled and I felt shock at certain revelations that come later in the novel. The way that the story is written is in a journal format, Josh writes about how much he hates his family life and how he wishes for changes that seem like they’ll never come. He just wants to be accepted but acceptance seems a ways away. The events that occur in Half my Facebook Friends are Ferrets do show how Josh’s character will have to grow up and evolve in an amusing way.

As a teen reading a novel that is supposed to relate to teens, the general gist of the story was totally relatable. Every teen wants to make friends. Every teen wants to live the big dream of a future they’ve built up in their head and every teen wants to break out into their own person. Half my Facebook Friends are Ferrets does a good job of showing that. The only thing that did make me wrinkle my nose was the way Josh talks. Yes, he uses a lot of texting-lingo but I personally felt that it was a little forced to make Josh sound young. There are exclamations of ‘OMG!’ and ‘FML!’ that didn’t feel very realistic to me as a teenager.

Apart from that, the characters in Half my Facebook Friends are Ferrets are still very well-written. No two characters are the same, all of them seem to grow by the end of the novel. Josh’s mother (I thought) turned out to be the most three dimensional of them all which surprised me a lot. A lot of teenage guys could probably relate to his character more than a teenage girl like myself can. And I’ll say right now that some readers might want to be a bit wary of some of the topics that come up in the novel like sex, masturbation and partying.

I would recommend this novel to any teenage guys who feel like they can relate to a main character like Josh, any readers who are looking for a coming-of-age novel and to any readers who want a quick, lighthearted read that they can get through easily in one sitting.