Donorboy

it seems like i always really like epistolary novels; i think there's a window into someone's thoughts and life that is different than you get with a standard narration, even when it's first person, and i like that. this wasn't just letters - it was actually mostly emails, some text messages, transcripts of recorded meetings, and instant messages (and a few pages in both a novel and tv script). technically it was entirely epistolary, but there are large sections that are diary entries that are akin to narration and that to me is sort of cheating. but it totally worked, i thought, and i really enjoyed both the book and the format. i don't think that halpin got the voice of a 14 year old girl right at all, but her character is consistent. show more so even though she didn't sound right at first, she was always herself and that made it work for me.

it's a slim, quick book but manages to give the reader a good idea of who these people are and what they're going through right away. her voice is a bit hard to understand sometimes because of the way she talks (run-on sentences with tangents and little punctuation, etc) but i think that's true to life, and it's not a hindrance in reading. show less

Have now read Donorboy, and found it very enjoyable. I think it could be read by teens as well as adults - I would have enjoyed it a little more as a teen, I think, for the glimpses into the adults' side of the story, but I may not have been typical.
I have a bit of a weakness for stories told in 'found documents', like Up the Down Staircase, so I enjoyed the format of emails and IMs and scribbled notes, which someone else might find distracting.
Ros's grief and confusion and anger were believable to me (I was orphaned a couple of years older than her), and the adults around her - donor dad Sean, mom's lesbian friend Karen, Sean's stoner dad Niall, were believably imperfect. The school administrators take kind of a hit, as Sean and Ros show more first bond over playing buzzword bingo in a conference about her acting out in school, but novels aren't about being fair to all the characters.

So on the whole I'd recommend it. show less

This was one of those books that practically fell off the shelf and into my arms while at the Library. I flew through it in under a day and found it charming, sad and funny. It's a rare writer that can construct a novel entirely out of e-mails, IM conversations and journal entries and have the construct work FOR rather than AGAINST him.

I love coming-of-age stories and this is among my all-time favourites. Rosalind is a young teen whose two moms die in a tragic accident. She goes to live with her biological father - the donor boy of the title. This is a wonderful, quirky teen/adult angst story told with great flair, humour and touching detail. It will appeal to fans of Salinger, Coupland, Vonnegut and Francesca Lia Block

Rosalind Butterfield doesn't exactly know what to do with herself. You see, her two moms just died in a freak auto accident and now she's been sent to live with her remaining biological parent- Sean the sperm donor. He was friends with her moms, but never really involved in her life, and her moms wanted him to have custody. So here she is. In a new place with a 35-year-old bachelor she doesn't know, failing school because she no longer sees the point in doing homework, and alienating her friends because they keep asking how she's doing (don't they get that things will NEVER be FINE again?).

The book is told through journal entries, emails, interviews, and other random communications. You get two major points of view- Ros's as she deals show more with losing her family and figuring out how to start over, and Sean's as he is thrust into parenting a 14-year-old girl and struggles to find his way with that. The book won an Alex Award, which is given to adult books with great appeal for teens, but I'd recommend it for older high school and adults. I think it would be interesting to see how a teen would react to it because I suspect that a teen would identify more with Ros, while I identified more with Sean. show less

When both of Rosalind's moms are killed in an unlickly foodstuffs related car accident, she is sent to live with her biological father, Sean. Sean is a single 35 year old man with emotional issues, who donated sperm and now is going to try and raise his "daughter." The two learn from each other as they try to coexist and cope with grief.

This is a very interesting book, with two very different main characters. It contains a lot of controversial topics, including lesbian mothers, sperm donors, and quite a bit of harsh language. But the truly valuable aspect to this book is that it is written completely in text messages, IM's, journals, emails, and other electronic media. It would be a very interesting form study for older young adults who show more can see past the language and touchy topics. show less

The whole story is told through emails, text messages, or voice recording. Very original text. The author does a fantastic job of giving each character a clear voice and identity.