Rating: 
Summary: Double, double toil and trouble
Review: This is the type of book you would expect from someone as accomplished as Coetzee. It's a simple story, with complex themes. It is a nostalgic introspective epic, seen through the eyes of a ten year old boy. It asks you (the reader) to judge the young protagonist, without giving you any help. The reader must keep in mind that this boy is going to be someone special later on in life, so, do you allow him the freedom to invent himself, or do you condemn him for the sins he confesses to? One could easily write a whole essay on this book, this is not the place. If you like being challenged, then this is a good read.
Finally, I grew up in the same area and under similar circumstances, it brought back many a memory.
Rating:
Summary: Spare, but wonderfully insightful
Review: Touching, illuminative, and compulsively readable, the first volume of South African writer J.M. Coetzee's "autobiography" is a wonderful introduction to the writer if you aren't familiar with him (as I wasn't). His prose style is spare but descriptive, and conveys South Africa in the late '40s and early '50s as seen through the eyes of a child. Not big on "plot," but based more upon observation, Boyhood is a quiet triumph.
Rating:
Summary: Spare, but wonderfully insightful
Review: Touching, illuminative, and compulsively readable, the first volume of South African writer J.M. Coetzee's "autobiography" is a wonderful introduction to the writer if you aren't familiar with him (as I wasn't). His prose style is spare but descriptive, and conveys South Africa in the late '40s and early '50s as seen through the eyes of a child. Not big on "plot," but based more upon observation, Boyhood is a quiet triumph.
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