Neil Smith (2) (1964–)

Thirteen-year-old Oliver Dalrymple, known as Boo to his classmates because of his ‘ghostly’ pale skin and white-blonde hair, is a science geek. He also has a hole in his heart. One day, while reciting the periodic table in front of his locker at school, he drops down dead. He wakes up in heaven although it is not the heaven most people anticipate. First, of all this heaven is just for thirteen-year-old Americans and it is called Town. The food is vegetarian and bland; the best one can show more say about the buildings is that they are utilitarian; and the clothes are hand-me-downs. There are ‘do-gooders’, mostly kids who have been there a while, to help the ‘newbies’.

Boo is settling in rather well all things considered when a classmate from back in Chicago, Johnny Henzel, arrives. He has a terrifying story to tell about the actual cause of their deaths. Boo didn’t die because of his holey heart; he and Johnny were shot and Johnny is convinced that Gunboy is here although Zig, Town’s god figure, has never permitted murderers into Town as far anyone knows. But Zig frequently makes mistakes. Among the weekly supplies, often something slips in that doesn’t belong – a gerbil, a kitten, a box of Froot Loops; it’s not inconceivable that Gunboy has also slipped in. He and Boo set out with the aid of their new do-gooder friends to explore Town and find their killer.

Boo by author Neil Smith is a smart, well-written, and quirky novel. It deals with some very important issues like the effects of bullying on teens as well as the power of forgiveness but, despite this, it never gets preachy. The story is told by Boo in the first person as a kind of journal to his parents and is aimed at a YA audience but works well for just about any age from Middle Grade to adult. There is some violence, though, so it may not be suitable for a very young audience. Definitely one of my favourite books of 2015. show less

When Oliver "Boo" Dalyymple wakes up in a "heaven" called Town, the 13-year-old thinks he died from the hole in his heart in the hallway of his middle school. But soon after arriving at the place reserved for 13-year-olds who have passed, Boo discovers he's a 'gommer', a kid who was murdered and that his killer may very well be in this heaven. With the help of Johnny, a classmate who was killed at the same school, Thelma, a 'Do-Gooder' Oliver meets when he first arrives in Town, and Ester, a show more 'Do-Gooder' in training, Oliver sets out to track down the mysterious Gunboy.

Written as letters to his parents, Boo tells them about his heavenly adventures as he forms friendships for the first time, learns about forgiveness, and makes peace with the boy he once was.

Boo is one of those books I've had on my TBR shelf for years that, through all the weeding I have done with that shelf, I knew I would want to read it. I'm glad I kept it because it's easily become one of my favorite books.

I will be honest and say I wasn't sure about Oliver/Boo and if I would like this at the beginning. Super smart teenagers almost always come across as too cocky for me to care. I'm not entirely sure when my feelings switched and I did a 180, but it wasn't very far into the novel (pretty sure it was a page after the thought that I might not enjoy this ran across my mind). Boo has become one of my favorite characters and his story is one that will stay with me.

Boo and Johnny's journey kept me interested throughout the whole thing. Boo's voice and his little inputs to his Mother and Father would almost always make me smile.

Though the characters are all thirteen-year-olds, I don't know if I would see myself as categorizing this as young adult... it just didn't really feel like your typical YA. It's for sure a coming-of-age type of story, but I would just put this as regular fiction that would also appeal to teens. show less

Neil Smith’s Boo is one of those novels that I feel compelled to read based on the premise alone. Sometimes, such novels fizzle because the premise was as good as things got. Other times those novels use the premise as a launching pad for delightful, unexpected writing that leaves one thinking, “I could read that again.” Boo most definitely falls into the second category.

Here’s that premise in a nutshell: Oliver (Boo) and Johnny meet up in the afterlife having been killed by the same show more school shooter. Johnny is determined to find their killer and re-death him. Boo is more ambivalent, but joins the search.

The boys are in heaven—or what passes for heaven in this novel. Heaven is, one infers, highly compartmentalized. There are separate heavens for each nation and for each age group, so Boo and Johnny are in the U.S. thirteen-year olds’ heaven. They get fifty years there, then they disappear. Completely disappear? Move on to a new heaven? Are reincarnated? No one knows. This heaven is run by the self-selected “do-gooders” (yes, they’re thirteen-year-olds as well), who monitor day-to-day life and greet the newly dead upon arrival.

The god that runs this heaven is certainly quixotic. “Shipments” of food and other necessities materialize regularly in warehouses. The food is mostly healthy and all vegetarian. Ordinary objects like blankets and pillows appear. Stranger objects appear as well and are put on display in Curios, the museum in this heaven. These objects include items like Susan B. Anthony dollars, an old rotary phone, and back issues of magazines. Boo works in Curios, and when a gun materializes he keeps it for himself.

Smith makes this heaven believable despite its apparent illogic, and the reader is quickly engaged following the stories of these youngsters, each of whom is spending fifty years at age thirteen. They’re normal thirteen-year-olds—hot tempered, quick to judge, easily frustrated—but they are all (more or less) trying to do the best they can. There are self-help groups for those who died by violence. There’s a sort of sanatorium for “sadcons,” the sad and confused who are having difficulty adjusting to the afterlife.

This is a book well worth reading both for the world it creates and for the tale of Boo and Johnny’s particular journey. You’ll leave it with the satisfaction a good novel provides. You’ll also have plenty of larger questions to mull over because of the ways Boo gets you thinking. show less

Good collection of short stories. Smith does well with a variety of moods, from the touching to the absurd, and the narratives are almost all engaging. There was only one story that failed to impress -- Extremities, which was purportedly about gloves in love with a member of store security, but I have to admit I got so fed up with it early on that I gave it a miss after a few pages.