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Boy’s Life has been touted by our own wonderful Char as an amazing book for eons. I’d always meant to read it and when I landed on Main Street 10 I found out I had to read a book that takes place in a small town in America. Boy’s Life takes place in a small town called Zephyr, in Alabama, so it was perfect. Plus, I needed some escapism and this fitted the bill.

The book takes place over the course of a year in the early 1960’s. At the start of the book Cory is out with his father on the latter’s milk round when they see a car going into the lake, a dead man strapped to the wheel. And so begins the story of the search for a killer and so many other things that shape Cory’s life over the course of that year.

One of the best things about this was the whole cast of characters who populate the town of Zephyr, wholly unique from one another, with their own set of idiosyncrasies, like Vernon who walked about the town naked! That was a whole lot of weird!

What I enjoyed most, though, is how intimately acquainted with Cory I became until I could almost predict his thoughts and reactions.

A review wouldn’t be complete without mentioning the array of themes the book managed to hit on. A chief focus was the murder, but things like racism were touched on, as was the supernatural. There wasn’t too much of any one theme, just enough so that it was authentic to everyday life. That’s what the book was really, a year in the life of a young boy, with a healthy dose of murder-mystery at it’s core.

I read this for Main Street 10: