From Publishers Weekly
Nicky Burden, a 16-year-old physics whiz whose spectacular intellect cannot compensate for his naivete, undergoes rites of passage in this second novel by Targan ( Kingdom ). Sheltered and kept outside traditional schools because of his immeasurably high IQ, brilliant but gullible Nicky enrolls in college to pose experimentally as a "normal" student. He becomes a partner in what he thinks is a poster business conducted by his huckster roommate, never questioning the contents of the tubes he delivers to a sleazy guy at a bus stop; he falls in love with campus journalist Sara Logan, convinced that her desire for him extends beyond her quest for a major scoop; he unwittingly supplies his encouraging but self-serving professors with his best ideas. The first-person narration raises the tricky problem of how a teenage super-genius might think and speak, but it is a relief to find Nicky portrayed as an outwardly average young man rather than a standard plaid-shirt-and-taped-glasses nerd. This refreshing, idealistic novel encourages stubborn individuality and acknowledges the complementary merits of science and the arts.
Copyright 1991 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Copyright 1991 Reed Business Information, Inc.
From Library Journal
Sixteen-year-old Nicky Burden, brilliant beyond genius, leaves home for his first shot at formal education as a freshman at upstate New York's Cobbton College. Despite his astounding intellect and a gift for physics, Nick is a genuinely nice kid, and very naive. Long before he seems to see it, the reader can tell that pretty nearly everyone Nick encounters is "using" him: his deal-making, nonacademic roommate, the ambitious head of the physics department, the eccentric English professor, and, yes, even the lovely student newspaper reporter who deflowers him. This is, nevertheless, a well-told romp filled with engaging characters and a convincing end-of-innocence plot. Recommended.
- Ann H. Fisher, Radford P.L., Va.
Copyright 1991 Reed Business Information, Inc.
- Ann H. Fisher, Radford P.L., Va.
Copyright 1991 Reed Business Information, Inc.
