REVIEW: This Boy's Life - Tobias Wolff

Here's another review for my creative writing course, comment if you have any constructive criticism!

Tobias Wolff tells a story that can only be described as twisted truth in his minimalistic memoires, ‘This Boy’s Life’. Powerful description immerses the reader in an adolescent tale of an ambitious boy who changes his name to Jack, after his hero. The reader follows Jack through a number of escapades, through gun-play, fist fights and the realisations of the ins and outs of life as it is. Many of his tales are hard to believe, due to the outlandish content and the excessive amount of detail used to describe them, however Wolff manages to create an amusing and captivating representation of the essence of growing up. We follow Jack as he is integrated into different families that his mother becomes involved with, including a cruel father-figure Dwight, who only complicates Jack’s childish dreams of escaping.

Wolff displays an incredible ability to use description and emotion in his writing to demonstrate the repercussions of the events in his youth. The reader follows the young narrator as the story strays from being simply memoires and borders on the genre of thriller at times.

I believe that the author’s intention was to relive his teenage years through wiser eyes, but in doing so some of his memories have been enhanced for the reader’s benefit. Nevertheless ‘This Boy’s Life’ still captures a raw and entertaining view of Wolff’s coming-of-age story. I thoroughly enjoyed ‘This Boy’s Life’ and would certainly recommend it to any reader old enough to look back and appreciate these adolescent adventures.