Fruit [Hardcover]

Brian Francis (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: August 2004

Thirteen-year-old Peter Paddington is overweight, the subject of his classmates' ridicule, and the victim of too many bad movie-of-the-week storylines. When his nipples begin speaking to him one day and inform him of their diabolical plan to expose his secret desires, Peter finds himself cornered in a world that seems to have no tolerance for difference. Peter's only solace is "The Bedtime Movies" - perfect-world fantasies that lull him to sleep every night. But when the lines between Peter's fantasies and his reality begin to blur, his hilarious adventures in overeating, family dysfunction, and the terrifying world of sexual awakening really begin.

--This text refers to the Paperback edition.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Thirteen-year-old Peter Paddington suffers through a year of eighth grade in this entertaining debut novel, set in Sarnia, Canada, in 1984. In some ways Peter is an average awkward teenager—hair sprouting in unexpected places, a lack of friends, curiosity about religion. But in other ways he's different—he weighs 204 pounds, and swollen nipples ("two small cherries") have just surfaced on his doughy chest. Soon these nipples take on a life of their own, actually speaking to Peter and giving him unsolicited advice. A vividly drawn dysfunctional family fills out the novel's landscape; most of this dysfunction revolves around food and weight and Peter's menopausal, smothering mother, Beth. Peter's long-suffering father, Henry, works a factory job in Chemical Valley, his thin sister Christine does her best not to associate with her family, his sister Nancy dumps her fat boyfriend to discover her "new" self, and his Uncle Ed is an overweight, closeted homosexual. The fluid, lively narrative is punctuated with a series of "Bedtime Movies," fantasies in which Peter is loved, popular and famous, propelled out of his fat, sad existence. Despite its fantastical twists, the novel hews closely to familiar coming-of-age formulas, but its hapless narrator is a winning hero.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Booklist

"How was I going to make it without anyone finding out my terrible secret?" Peter knows there are plenty of things wrong with his body. He is planning to start his diet any day so that he will be thin and normal by high school. But it's his deformed nipples, suddenly big and swollen as two cherries, that really scare him. He tries to strap them down. He even goes Catholic for a while and prays to the Virgin in his closet to shrink them--and to make the most gorgeous guy in his class give him a call. The time is 1984, but the dream of being "normal" is universal. Both hilarious and gentle, the young teen's voice is pitch-perfect, capturing not only his self-obsession and bedtime fantasies about being Brooke Shields in a shiny pink dress but also his family problems and his generous friendship with the foul-mouthed girl across the street. Without a didactic word, this first novel tells a funny, honest gay coming-of-age story about a boy who finally confronts his secret self. Hazel Rochman
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 284 pages
• Publisher: MacAdam/Cage Publishing (August 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1931561761
• ISBN-13: 978-1931561761
• Product Dimensions: 8.2 x 5.6 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 14.4 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,951,686 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Discover books, learn about writers, read author blogs, and more.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Eat 5 servings a day!, March 2, 2005

By 

Meg Brunner (Seattle, WA USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Fruit (Hardcover)

Wonderful and strange novel about an overweight teenaged boy whose nipples talk to him. Sounds weird, right? And it is, but it's also gut-wrenchingly honest and open, and any kid who's ever struggled with a weight problem (or with a sexual identity crisis, for that matter), will completely relate to thirteen year-old Peter Paddington. Horrified by his huge nipples (or, as they'd call them on Seinfeld, "man boobs"), which he's sure all the kids can see through his tee-shirt, Peter starts by wrapping his chest in loops of masking tape. But as his nipples start to become raw and sore, he begins imagining that they are making fun of him for being so ashamed of himself, and yearning to be set free. Just about this same time, Peter starts to realize he's not like the other boys -- that he's just not attracted to girls. But he doesn't have any concept of what that means. Does that mean he's a freak? He sure feels like a freak. A fat, stupid freak. As time passes and his nipples keep voicing the thoughts that are deep down in his head, Peter slowly begins to come to terms with himself, and to learn how to overcome the things he can beat (like his weight problem) and embrace the things that just make him HIM. This novel is totally sweet and funny and gentle. I loved every word and can't wait for more from this new Canadian author.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Fruit, September 25, 2004

By 

Diplocaulus (Chicago, IL United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Fruit (Hardcover)

Fruit is funny and clever. It's a remarkably quick read, though the prose doesn't suffer for it.

Our narrator, Peter, goes through his last year of life before entering high school by delivering papers, indulging in weird fantasies, spending time with his foul-mouthed neighbor, seeing the Virgin Mary in the woodwork of his closet door, and struggling with his weight, his inflamed nipples, and his family.

Written in first person, the book reads as Peter's immediate thoughts, focusing on narrating his life, but frequently drifting to tangents and fantasies of being popular and loved. The book is infused with a great sense of humor which grows out of Peter's weird friends and family and also his own naiveté about the world and himself. As Peter himself isn't ready to face some of the realities he needs to, the book deftly touches on several issues without coming to neatly-wrapped and false-feeling conclusions.

6 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars (3.5) The teenage trauma of body image, August 19, 2004

By 

Luan Gaines "luansos" (Dana Point, CA USA) - See all my reviews
(TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (VINE VOICE)    (HALL OF FAME REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Fruit (Hardcover)

Peter Paddington is not an ordinary adolescent, concerned about girlfriends and a few facial blemishes or whether to lose a pound or two. No, in Peter's little corner of Sarnia, Canada, he is worried about a boyfriend and fifty pounds (or more) and the fact that part of his anatomy has begun speaking to him (always giving bad advice, at that). Trapped in his corpulent body, when not binding his developing (and talking) chest with masking tape or examining the weird places where body hair has suddenly sprouted, Peter agonizes over ever having the courage to go on a diet and become "the new and improved Peter Paddington".

Surrounded by an enabling, if well-meaning family, Peter's cause is hampered by an emotionally inept father and two older sisters, who heap scorn upon their younger brother. Unfortunately, each time Peter works up the determination to start a diet, he is sabotaged by the well-meaning efforts of a mother who whisper/screams and turns a blind eye to her son's problems. Every day filled with self-loathing, deprecation and humiliation, compensation is in order, hence Peter's imaginative "Bedtime Movies", little vignettes he imagines to lull himself to sleep.

Peter's school has its own social hierarchy, specific groups like the Athlete Group, the Short group, the Geek group, the Goody-Goody Group, the Indian Group and the Banger Group. Peter is intimidated by most of these categories, especially the Banger group, who consider him an object for their amusement. Viewed metaphorically, Peter has a surplus of social adjustment issues.

As he bumbles into his fourteenth year, Peter's overactive imagination comes in handy for strategizing a life plan, his greatest challenge hovering on the horizon. His incipient, life-altering sexual orientation at issue, this kid is nowhere near ready to be counted out; Peter Paddington is headed for a spectacular coming out. Luan Gaines/2004