Spud
by John van de Ruit

Razor Bill Books, 2007, 309 pp, $8.99ISBN 978-159514187-3

Enter John Milton, [a.k.a. Spud] a pre-pubescent schoolboy living in South Africa in 1990. This average 13-year-old is suddenly thrust into the world of creepy prefects, law-breaking roommates and intoxicated teachers. Spud wins a scholarship and is sent to an elite boarding school in the mountains, where the beatings are harsh, the classes unbearable, and the students insane. Spud’s new best friends are the bossy Rambo, the pervert Boggo, the huge Fatty, the athletic Simon, the sickly Gecko, the bloodthirsty Mad Dog, and the hair-pulling deranged bunkmate, Rain Man. Spud goes through all these hilarious peers and more as he goes through 1990.

We follow Spud day by day, through one of the more memorable years of his life. He deals with love in a mysterious girl he can’t stop thinking about. He befriends a sickly outcast, loses a friend to malaria, and sings solo’s in front of hundreds of people. 

He joins the cast of the school play, “Oliver!” And wins the main role in this novel. There are various themes in this book, but the main one I can identify with is growing up. Spud is caught in a conflict between his friends, girls, and teachers. He overcomes “hurdles” of life one by one, never getting too caught up.

John Van de Ruit spins a tale through a diary, a comedy that only the wildest imagination can think up. He expresses Spud’s feelings as if he had been Spud as a boy. [Which I highly doubt, or he would still be in prison!] His creative style of situations makes this book one of the funniest I have ever read.

I would strongly recommend this book to any mature teenager looking for a laugh, and a hilarious time-passer. My parents almost took the book away from me in the car, I was laughing so much. Spud will have you laughing out loud from beginning to end!

~ reviewed by Austin