Grow Up

"Brilliantly captures 21st-century youth. Hilarious."
-- "Times" (U.K.)

"Liquid Gold."
-- "The Observer" (U.K.)

"Ben Brooks is a magical imp who pumps out dark nuggets of poetry and makes you snort with laughter."
--Noel Fielding, co-creator of "The Mighty Boosh "

"Engaging, funny and sharply-written. I loved how ["Grow Up"] manages to be both brutally uncompromising and gloriously warm-hearted."
--Chris Killen, author of "The Bird Room"

"Sickeningly good. So confident, so stylish. An unacceptably witty and original debut."
--Tim Key

"I thought ["Grow Up"] was amazing. One of the most hilarious and well observed accounts of teenage debauchery you are ever likely to read....Alarmingly good. Jasper is great fun, naively perceptive, often LOL-funny company. A totally convincing portrait of being a wayward teenager now . . . It's so pertinent it actually kind of trips you out."
-- "Dazed & Confused"

"Navigates the travails of school and beyond with a quick wit."
-- "Independent on Sunday" (U.K.)

"A sharp and witty exploration of adolescent life..."Grow Up" is one part serious, the rest is simply laugh-out loud funny....{Brooks] is able to deal with issues such as self-harm and suicide with a tenderness and sensitivity that one would have thought beyond his years....contagiously funny, well-written and no doubt marks the start of a promising career for a talented young writer."

-- "The Scotsman" (U.K.)

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--Michael Cart, "Booklist"
"Eminently readable... Hyper-self-aware...Filled with black humor and fleeting tenderness... Its protagonist, Jasper J. Wolf, imagines himself as a prettier Holden Caulfield, but the end game reveals that the self-reflective young writer is more along the lines of a John Hughes hero, albeit with volumes more narcotics...There's a timeless if caustic quality to [narrator] Jasper's minimalist rants [and] there's an unexpected humor even to the murkiest sequences. Brooks' work feels richer [than] the transgressive teen drama "Skins"...as it explores generational angst and the blue-black damage of adolescence."
-- "Kirkus Reviews"