Face door Benjamin Zephaniah

Beoordeling 7.5
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Boekcover Face
Shadow
  • Boekverslag door een scholier
  • 1e klas tto vwo | 1190 woorden
  • 23 mei 2017
  • 22 keer beoordeeld
Cijfer 7.5
22 keer beoordeeld

Boek
Auteur
Benjamin Zephaniah
Taal
Engels
Vak
Eerste uitgave
1999
Pagina's
208
Oorspronkelijke taal
Engels

Boekcover Face
Shadow
Face door Benjamin Zephaniah
Shadow

The writer of the book Face is Zephaniah Benjamin. He is born on the 15th of April 1958. He is a British writer. He loves Handsworth, he called it the Jamaican capital of Europe. I think that that is the reason that the Jamaican sistas are called the Jamaican sistas. He demonstrated for the rights of black people. The Jamaican sistas are also black. He wrote the book Face in 1999. The reason he wrote this book, Face, is that young adults would read a book about their world. One day, a friend of Benjamin and his brother's came back home. But the next morning Benjamin and his brother were woken up and were told that the friend had died. Apparently he, after he left the house, took some drugs, stole a car, and drove it into a wall.

When the story begins, three friends, Martin, Mark and Mathew, are at school; it is almost holiday. They call themselves The Gang of Three. Martin and his friends live in a district in London and there is a lot of drugs selling happening. In the districts where the story takes place is a lot of criminality. The place is very important for this novel. This novel is about how young people live in these kind of districts and how they behave.

The Gang of Three and Natalie go out to a club, Dancemania, where they listen and dance to hip-hop and rap music. When they go home, the Gang of Three meets a friend, who has stolen a car. Martin and Mark step in the car, Mathew is scared. The car driver and his friend used drugs. They were followed by a police car. That’s a reason why they got into an accident. Mark breaks a few ribs and Martin burns his face. The car driver is dead.

When Martin wakes up, he realizes that he is seriously injured. His face is seriously burned. Everything changes after the accident. His friends are not his friends anymore and Natalie isn’t his girlfriend. He becomes depressed.

At school, everything is different. He has to make new friends. He goes to Dancemania alone and meets the Jamaican sistas, three girls called Marica, Teen and Naz, there. They become his new friends.

Until his PE teacher, Mr. Hewitt, asks him to put together a gymnastics team for a local competition at the Leisure Centre. Martin becomes the captain of the team. He takes this job very seriously. He tries to call Natalie, but she is busy.

Then, in the park, Martin sees Natalie kissing a boy. He becomes depressed again. He doesn’t leave his room anymore, only for the hospital controls. In the hospital he meets Anthony again. Anthony's face hasn't been good since he was born. His parents have no time for him. He is a friend of Martin. Martin realizes that his friend is more worsely wounded than he is. Martin becomes positive again and invites Anthony to the gymnastics competition.

The competition consists of two parts: the main part of the competition and the freestyle section. In the freestyle round, they finished in second place. The freestyle section was the strongest point of the team: a dance on hip-hop music. All the spectators loved it, but the five judges unfortunately didn’t. The school got third place in the main competition. Martins team was disqualified for the freestyle competition. At first he is sad, but his teammates , Anthony and his new friends support him. He is a winner.

In this book, there are a few important themes. One of them is friendship. Friendship is very important. Because Martin thought that he had real friends, but he got new friends (the Jamaican sistas and Anthony). He also participates in a gymnastics contest. The match went very well, because the real competition went very well, just as the freestyle competition. But the five old judges found that a number of hip-hop music didn’t belong in a gymnastics competitionm, so Martin’s team was disqualified. Most of the people thought it was nonsense, but the decision could not be turned back.

The other theme is that you must enjoy your life! A change can come very quickly. In the book the change comes very quickly, too. Martin had a car accident and almost instantly, his whole life changed! His old friends are gone and so is his girlfriend. He made other friends and that’s the reason that he gets another character. He has another face, because his face is burned. So his whole life changed very quickly! In short, enjoy your life! Enjoy life while you can, because maybe tomorrow everything can change.

This novel can also happen in other big cities with suburbs. The first new problems faced by the main characters is that they must live on these streets. The main character, Martin, gets a lot of problems when he is involved in a car accident. His face gets burned and ugly. He needs a skin graft and after losing his friends, he becomes depressed.

For me the climax of the novel is the accident on the street. After the climax I wanted to read more about the main characters. That is also the moment that the plot changed. The main character after the accident becomes Martin. The messages of the book are that discrimination and prejudices aren’t good, but they exist. Another message of the book is that you must believe in yourself. When you believe in yourself, you can do anything you like, for example making new friends after the accident.

At the beginning the novel was difficult, because my English isn’t very good, but when I got further into the book, it became a little bit easier to read, but still difficult. My opinion of the book is that it is a sad, beautiful book about friendships. I enjoyed reading it and I’m curious about the next book.

At first I wondered why the title of the book Face is ? But when I read the book, I got it. The title is Face because Martin has to face with the fact that his face is burned in the accident and he must try to live with that.

I think the age group of this book is twelve to sixteen, because the themes are for young people. The character is 15 years old and that is roughly the same as the age group of the book. Also, the life lessons are very important, though a bit horrible to read, so the book isn’t good for readers who are too young.

I liked the book, because it has a happy end. It’s never dull, because a lot of things happening in the story. I'd recommend it to everybody, because It’s a good book. It isn’t a fantasy book and I like mostly only fantasy books, but I really liked this book as well. It’s also another habitat and I like that.

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