| Title | : | Candy |
| Author | : | |
| Rating | : | |
| ISBN | : | 0439683289 |
| ISBN-10 | : | 9780439683289 |
| Language | : | English |
| Format Type | : | Paperback |
| Number of Pages | : | 384 |
| Publication | : | First published March 1, 2005 |
| Awards | : | Manchester Book Award Longlist (2006), North East Teenage Book Award (2006), Silberner Lufti (2006) |
Candy Reviews
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Candy, Kevin Brooks
Candy is a 2005 young adult novel by Kevin Brooks about a doomed teenage love affair between a musician and a prostitute.
The story opens when Joe Beck, a music lover with a knack for curiosity, meets 16-year-old Candy on the streets of London. Joe soon learns that Candy is not only a runaway from her home town, but also a teenage prostitute. He immediately becomes infatuated with her. ...
تاریخ نخستین خوانش: روز سی ام ماه می سال 2015میلادی
عنوان: کـَندی؛ نویسنده: کوین بروکز؛
داستان عاشقانه ای بین یک موزیسین و دختری شانزده ساله به نام کـَندی است؛ از آثار «کوین بروکز»؛ «پسر اینترنتی» ترجمه و منتشر شده است؛
تاریخ بهنگام رسانی 08/09/1399هجری خورشیدی؛ ا. شربیانی -
Love’s Another Drug
(A Book Review of Kevin Brooks’s Candy)
It’s hard to imagine life without Candy.
Addiction is a word most of us are familiar with and all of us have his/her vices, fixes we hanker for from time to time. But how powerful can an addiction be and how far can we go to satisfy this burning need?
Joe Beck is your average fifteen-year-old teen living a comfortable life in the suburbs of London; he gets by in his school studies and cares pretty much about his music playing bass for a band with some boys from his school called The Katies.
But his boring, uneventful life will turn upside down on a simple trip to a doctor’s appointment in the city, the day he turns the corner of the street and meets Candy he instantly falls for her. It seems like your usual boy-meets-girl setup, but as Joe gets to know Candy and enters her life, closer, the more he becomes obsess and longs for her, he is initiated into the London underworld of drug, violence, and prostitution, the closer he gets in the way of danger.
In Kevin Brook’s 2005 novel, Candy, he gives us a view of what forms addiction can take, dealing with one of the most pernicious kind there is: drugs. In a turbulent journey of a love story told from an innocent boy’s point of view, we get to see the struggles of Candy, the titular character, who wants to break free from the drug’s devastating hold and the miserable life it has lead her into, selling her body in order to feed her addiction.
Joe’s world suddenly takes a dramatic change not in the way he expects it to be once he meets Candy. At first he seems uncertain about her feelings for her, yet as the novel progresses it becomes more than just the typical teenage crush. He becomes hooked to Candy, his addiction more powerful than drugs can effect and he’ll do whatever it takes to pluck her out of the nightmare she is living. However, the road to redemption has its price and the way is fraught with peril and difficulty to keep them from each other. Still, it’s a chance that they are willing to take.
The love, passion, fears, and brutality of the story keeps you wanting more. The rush of all the emotions that sweep over you as you are turning each page, gives you a craving for more Candy. Kevin Brooks wants you to feel what it would be like in Joe’s position. He makes you wonder, thinking to yourself “What would I do?” This shockingly, twisted love story, raw in its telling, compulsive in its stark painting of reality, will not only take you on the edge of your seat, it is equally evocative in its tender moments of what it feels like to be young, naïve, and in love.
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Book Details:
Book #10 for 2011
Published by Push Books
(First Push Paperback Printing, March 2006))
364 pages
Started: March 29, 2011
Finished: March 31, 2011
My Rating:★★★
[See this review on my book blog
Dark Chest of Wonders and for many others.] -
Joe Beck’s life is pretty run-of-the-mill. Parents separated, doesn’t get on so well with his father, goes to school, plays with a band, tries to stay out of trouble. And then he meets Candy.
Something about her draws him right in. He can’t believe she’s talking to him. That he could be so lucky. And when he gets chased off by a very large and very scary Iggy, who can only be her Pimp, he can’t believe that either. He mulls it over for a week, after finding her number in his pocket, then calls to ask her out, knowing it’s the only thing to do.
At the Zoo she seems so normal. She explains Iggy away as some guy who’s just a little crazy. Joe wants to believe it, so he does. When she leaves him in the cafe to go to the bathroom and comes back changed, he understands she must use drugs, but he doesn’t give that much thought either. She likes him. He likes her.
But when she comes to his Band’s show only to be dragged off by Iggy and his hoarde, a fight which gets Joe’s brother-in-law to be injured, things come to a head. With nowhere left to turn, he finally tells his sister everything. Unable to believe there’s nothing he can do to help, and unable to get Candy on the phone, as soon as his dad’s left for his business trip, Joe takes off, losing all cares about being grounded.
He takes a train back to the spot where he first stumbled into her. Nothing. He wanders around London, trying to find somewhere within 10 minutes that could be the spot where she lives. If that part was true. Ready to admit defeat, he’s heading back to catch another train when he spots Iggy leaving the station, and gets it in his head to follow him.
After being led to the house, he hides in the bushes for quite awhile, making his move when an elderly woman loaded down with shopping bags arrives. He helps her carry them in, then takes off up the stairs to find Candy. And find her he does–severely battered and bruised. Broken, she tells him everything. How she came to be here, how it went so far. They’re concocting a plan to get her out of there when Iggy returns. There’s no saying if Joe could have stayed hidden in the bathroom if his cell phone hadn’t rung. But it did. And things very suddenly became life or death.
With a straight-edge razor held to his throat, Joe is staring at the end, when Candy breaks a lamp against Iggy’s head. They quickly bind him up with tape, and take off into the night. They stop at Joe’s house for supplies, then board another train, heading for the summer cottage. The plan is to get Candy clean, then take it from there. Iggy won’t find them. He’s sure of it, despite a nagging at the back of his brain.
But just when the worst of it seems over, when Candy seems to be herself again, and not a withdrawl insane version, Joe realizes just what kind of trouble he’s in. Iggy has his sister. He can find them, because Joe tells him exactly where they are. Any bargaining power he had has gone. Even with Mike on the way to help, there’s no knowing if he’ll beat Iggy to them, or what they can do even if he does.
In the end, it turns out in a way no one would have imagined.
Time goes by, but Joe can’t remember how life was before Candy. All he can do is struggle to find his way back to it. -
So far, so awesome.
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I abandoned this book because it was an absolute horrible piece of literature. The writing is very dry and it is a slow piece without a big climax. The constant mention of all the bad guys being black really got me mad, especially since this book isn't talking about racial issues its talking about a prostitute and a love struck boy. The mention of the main characters sisters boyfriend, mike, makes him seem like an "uncle tom"character, one that is acceptable in the eyes of caucasians because he's"white washed". Also in a quick interaction with a minor character in the book he stated that he was white but talked "black". What in the world is that supposed to mean? All in all I hated this book very much.
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Everyone's always ranting about how this book is so great. It let me down SO much. Kevin Brooks does this thing where he leads to a conclusion in the end but doesn't explain it because the character never seems to care. It works in some of his books like Being or The road of the dead, but i honestly didn't like this one.
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CW// discussions of racism and racist quotes
this was not the book I was intending to read. I was actually looking for the book called “candy” that the heath ledger film was based on, but when I found a book called candy in the libby app I didn’t think to check the author and didn’t realise until I’d started reading.
given that this wasn’t the book I was planning on reading, it wasn’t bad. it could have been a good YA romance that dealt with heroin addiction in a way suitable for teen audiences. in places, it was that book. it was just a shame it had to be so dramatic - everything with Iggy was so unnecessary and I think it would have been a better, more impactful book without it. especially since the Iggy storyline was full of racism. pro tip: making the narrator have a realisation that he’s automatically labelling Black men as intimidating is not meaningful if you then continue to make the only Black male characters in the book evil and violent, with the exception of Mike who is just a “big black guy” (that exact phrase is used 3 times throughout the book, to refer to every single Black male character who appears) who is only violent when it’s called for. race was handled appallingly in this book.
there was no need for the threatening presence of Iggy. Candy was an addict and therefore Joe’s struggle in getting her to safety could have simply focused on the hold heroin had on her, there didn’t need to be a threat of physical violence and in fact it would have been more impactful if she had been unwilling to leave that lifestyle behind purely because it meant giving up heroin. you caught glimpses of what this book could have been: the scenes describing her withdrawal, the gentle exchange between Candy and Gina, Joe’s loving naïveté. this was one of those instances of “so close and yet so far” from being the book it could have been. -
meh...it took me an extremely long time to get through this (*gasp* I had to return it LATE to the library, astonishing I know) and that's coming from the girl who reads novels like it's an Olympic sport. Part of the reason is because of how Kevin Brooks writes, I swear if I read the words 'it was...I don't know, so much.' I WILL scream. You are a WRITER, for the book's sake get some dang adjectives! Plus, personally I don't like books where nothing really happens, and I mean things happen but nothing really changes. It doesn't have the classic fairytale ending, but I don't mind that, those books are always pretty dang interesting to read. (Though of course don't worry sappy books where you know exactly what will happen the second you read that little flap, I still love you like my band teacher loves Macs... which is to say a lot :D) <--off topic but hello that looks like an extremely happy man with a double chin... you can't just ignore those things. I also didn't really like the insta-love thing, I mean sure it's nice to think about and I will admit to liking more than a few books with insta-love in them, but in 'Candy' he's hopelessly in love with her, (and I suppose she rather likes him too) but every time they're together they just sit in awkward silence. In any case, I just don't like the book, case closed.
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This has got to be one of the worst pieces of modern YA fiction I've had the misfortune of reading in years. Cliche, predictable, and utterly unbelievable from start to finish (though trust me, it gets worse and worse as it goes). With so much spectacularly good work being done by the likes of David Levithan and John Green, I'm not sure why you would waste your time with this.
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Candy, LOVE is Dangerous.
Brooks, Kevin
PUSH, 2007
This gripping and provocative love novel basically falls under the genre of teen fiction. With unstoppable and naive romance, Kevin Brooks (author) portrays your typical boy-girl scenario attracting the attention of adolescent readers/audiences.
"I just cant see myself without her. About the best I can manage is the last half hour before we met, when I was just still a boy. I was innocent then." Joe Beck was your typical fifteen year old suburban high school student. Mindlessly getting by with school, Joe played the guitar in a band known as the Katies. Living under the roof of his divorced parents, Joe shared a house with his father and his older sister, Gina. Gina unravels later on in the novel that she is understanding and accepting with whatever choices her little brother chooses to make. Having to deal with her father's racism over her future husband "Mike" she supports any person with no judgement. With a simple and moderately average life, Joe had gained the title as "Average Joe", that is all until he mistakingly met a beautifully, wrecked Candy on the streets of London. As the quote above reads, Joe had an everyday normal teenage life but the transformation that progressed during the amount of time he had spent with Candy, had transformed him into a man with knowledge and a man who had grown deeply in love.
"I don't know how it happened but everything suddenly changed. I was a woman, I couldn't get enough of it. I was hooked." Candy is the alternative main-character. Unlike Joe Beck, Candy had a more difficult child hood on the more real estate part of town. Throughout her child hood, Candy had always been a good looking girl. She'd be the kind of girl that mothers would be proud of and the ones that fathers would over protect. Everyone loved a pretty girl. As she grew older and older, she'd blossomed into the kind of girl that men couldn't resist and the kind of girl that every other girl envied. The author had described that soon enough, jealousy had overwhelmed her closest friends which derived them to reject her. Further on in her years, Candy had carelessly dropped everything and ended up on the streets of London where she drowned her sorrows in men and heroin with her whore house pimp "Iggy". Iggy is later on unraveled as violent and manipulative.
After having several few encounters with Candy, Joe realizes that there's more to life than just school and music. He shockingly falls deeply in love with a beautiful stranger that he barely knows. Throughout his loving obsession, Candy unravels some unflattering truths about herself including being a prostitute, along with a heroin addict. With nothing holding Joe back (Like Candy's threatening pimp, Iggy) he'll do anything for his desire to help Candy with her miserable life. Together, they go through tremendous pains and difficulties to straighten out her life back in order.
This novel is basically set with your classic forbidden love, some-what theme. The story is told straightly from the perspective of the main character Joe Beck which creates a phenomenon sense to the reader. As the reader, you are placed in the shoes of a naive boy attempting to increase his love for a girl he barely even knows which creates a common text connection with high school relationships. The descriptive writing and creativity kept the reader wanting more and more of what would reveal in the next chapter. What was successfully enjoyable throughout this novel was the unique sense of admirable danger. The capability to capture their oddly hypnotic feel for love definitely helped with the twisted plot.
The message that the author could've wanted to expose was the strong sense of the encouraging fight for love that could occur when too attached/obsessed with love. All in all, the novel was filled with irresistible events, unstoppable love and provocative danger. The author had written an almost exquisite novel about two completely opposite strangers falling completely and mistakingly in love. -
Once again, I'm not a teenager, I read this book for a YA writing course. When I was a teenager I read a bit of Melvin Burgess, and so wasn't shocked by any of the subject matter of this novel.
There are two reasons that I don't like this book, the first is that I think it would have been better, read - more interesting, from Candy's point of view, rather than from that of the male narrator. His life is boring, and he makes a lot of suppositions about Candy that got annoying. I wanted to hear her story first hand.
The second reason was that I hated Joe. He was the kind of nerdy weirdo I hate in books. And the whole thing read like a fantasy on his part. Like he'd finally gotten a chance to be a hero, instead of a loser who's in a band with people he hates.
For me, a good story was ruined by the protagonist, and I couldn't believe it after how much people had recommended it to me. Deeply disappointed. -
I liked this book. It had a lot of suspense and is a quick read once you invest the time in it. I wish the ending had been less vague.. makes me wonder if there will ever be a sequel. If I could give this book a 3.5 I would, but since I can't I'm settling with a 3.
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Give me the strength not finish books.
Nothing happened in this, there was no character development, no reason for the mc to be so hopelessly in love with Candy. The writing sucked. Here's the climax: "it was just so... I don't know. Just so much." -
Consumed it all in less than 3 days. Kevin brooks work is so addicting you cannot put the book down. The writing style, the wording, the themes involved...cheff's kiss. Cross my heart and hope to die I will never stop talking about how good his books are. Candy did not disappoint a bit. AMAZING.
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3,5
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I decided to read “Candy” by Kevin Brooks because it said it was about a boy who is obsessed with a girl and i found that really interesting. The book is about a boy named Joe who meets a girl named Candy and is instantly fascinated by her (he likes her). I guess you could call it love at first sight. But there is a catch, Candy isn’t your typical or average girl. Most boys if they liked her would Immediately want nothing to do with her when they find out what she is/does and what her life is like. Joe isn’t like that. He doesn’t bash her or put shame on her, he wants to help her, make her a better person, and get her out of the situation that she’s in. He wants to remind her who she is again, how her life was like before even if that means jeopardizing everything (like his own life).
One thing I liked about this book is one of the themes . Courage. Joe was willing to do anything to save Candy from whats she’s dealing with/going through, he was very determined. Like they say, you don’t walk away if you love someone, you help them. See, Joe could’ve just let Candy keep suffering but since he loved her, he didn’t and that’s what I like about him as a character.
One thing I didn’t appreciate was how Kevin Brooks worded a part of the summary on the back of the book. It states, “It starts as an attraction, a crush... and then turns into something more like an obsession”. When I read this part while trying to figure out a book to read, I thought Joe was going to be a psychopath. I thought HE was going to be the one violent to Candy. I wish Kevin Brooks didn’t exaggerate so much because in the book I wouldn’t consider Joe obsessed with Candy , he just admires her and wants to learn more about her.
I recommend this book to teenagers (young adults) because the 2 main characters are around 16 years old and I think it’s important for teens to be informed on substance abuse and real life problems that people go through in our world today. The situations in this book are definitely crazy, unbelievable and eye catching. -
Joe beck was a normal teenage guy trying to make it through high school, practice with his band, and juggle family issues. He never would've guess how his life would turn around from a simple trip to the train station. Joe gets off the train and runs into a beautiful girl named Candy. He's baffled, and they end up making it to a mcdonalds when after grabbing some food, a big group of pimps walk in a start harassing Candy. Joe realizes what she does and doesn't know how to handle it.. his feelings have already started and he won't let go of the spark he feels with her. Can Joe get her away from the hands that hold her in this way of life? And if he does, can she let herself get away from the drugs?
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Candy can be addictive
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I encountered this book in a 2nd and Charles while helping my ten year old try to find a book for himself. At first, between the cover and the synopsis, I thought: "oh, someone must have misplaced this book. There's no way..."
Well, it certainly didn't belong in the children's section. After reading it, I find it hard to believe it is in the Young Adult. I admit, I have read very little Young Adult fiction at all, bar what I did in my youth (before the term came in to the common vernacular).
What possessed me to buy it/read it?
I am a huge fan of all things "doomed romance." Scholastic's "PUSH" line (Research has revealed) is devoted to injecting a shot of reality deep in the veins of the bubble-gum-love-at-sixteen crop of crap being sold. In this case, Candy delivers a grim and terrifying look at the world of human trafficking, coerced prostitution, heroin addiction, and first love...and that's just for starters.
Brooks employs a deeply centered first-person narrative which frequently follows the stream of conscious of Joe, the book's protagonist. It took some adjusting, but after awhile, it becomes hard to realize you are NOT Joe. He is by no means hero material, and his failing to confront some rather terrifying circumstances were such a breath of relief. All too often, in any genre, we see the protagonist of a novel confront overwhelming odds far before having the precedent or necessary reason to do so.
***Spoilers in this paragraph***
The central story involves Joe, a somewhat introverted musician who is struggling with both school and a rather unique parental problem--his mother abandoned his family, yet continues to see his father. Joe is visiting London to get a lump on his wrist treated when he encounters Candy, Immediately entranced, a quick meal at McDonald's turns in to an education of street life. Candy's cover story is bullshit: she is a prostitute, and her pimp interrupts the meal. He warns Joe off (that's putting it politely).
The central struggle of the book is Joe's growing obsession with the girl, whereby they sneak once off and have a brief romantic encounter. Thoroughly hooked, he resolves to extricate her from her life and save herself. It is as this point we learn more of her addiction, circumstances, and so much more.
Joe sacrifices so much, endangers his loved ones, and by the end, I found myself nearly wanting to strangle him myself. Then, upon reflecting, I spent a moment remembering first love, dating, and the unsteady cocktail of 16 year old hormonal floods. Joe was forgiven, and Kevin Brooks is to be praised: this book was thrilling, every step of the way. Realistic, unapologetic, without any cliches or forced mercies.
I would recommend this book to nearly anyone...except the young children who may have snagged it from the store!
I've begun Kevin Brook's "Kissing the Rain," and I must say: the man is a remarkable talent. READ THIS BOOK! -
Great book. Kevin Brooks is in my opinion the most amazing and underrated young adult writer. Although I did not enjoy this book as much as Lucas the first book of his I read, it was still a gripping story that I couldn’t put down. This book much like Lucas, leaves me with deep and durable thoughts. Generally a Cool, easy to read and interesting story but with an ending that keeps you guessing and wanting more.
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I really need to review these books right after I read them... because I can't remember crap. Now... why did I give this one a B? Perhaps I should change it. Oh... because it was British. And anything British automatically gets a B in my book. But, looking back on it, the fact that it was British was really the only thing Candy had going for it.
It's a trendy book. Does that make sense? I can see this book becoming really popular, with people saying that it really targets a younger audience. What with it's adressing of drugs, sex... and music! Ha. I couldn't resist... music... hee. Because, when you really look at this book- er- read this book, it's the music that it comes down to. The music that drives Joe. It drives him to help Candy kick the habit. No, I don't remember.
But, um, the book was an okay read. It's like a snack in the meal of life. This isn't a book you'll remember years down the road. It's not going to be a classic. It'll fall back into the dusty shelves of unread literature after a while. I think it's a good book for younger readers... not children. But teens that don't want to put a lot of effort into reading. There we go, it's one of those books. It doesn't take a lot of effort to read and it can probably grab your attention if you are a teenager that sort of... coasts... through life and you don't enjoy reading but you need a book to read to do a book report on for your English class. If that is you. This book is for you.
Yeah. Fuck, I'm tired. -
Candy is about a teenager named Joe Beck who was raised in a single-parent family. He met a girl named Candy at a train station in London, and became in love with her, but then he soon figured that Candy was not just a ordinary girl. She had a dark life full of violence, sex, and drugs. Because of how deeply Joe was in love with her, he is willing to save Candy from her dark life and her pimp"Iggy" before any other conflict starts to happen.
Candy would not be the only girl who had a dark past with violence such as sex and drugs. I can make a text to world connection to the things the main character is going through because im so sure that there are many women and men out in the world who probably did drugs and went to rehab also.
I rated this book 4 stars because this book was very emotional. The conflicts Kevin Brooks combined together made it very interesting and descriptive. Some scenes make you feel like you are there. I recommend this book to teens who likes books that have many conflicts that would lead them to have emotional feelings.
