Imagine gaining amazing powers from one single phone. Being able to hack into bank accounts, read people's texts and access it whenever you want. It was like that for Tom after and accident involving the top of a tall building, a window, and an iphone. It's a great benefit, but it can also be his worst nightmare.  Now Tom has to fight the battle in his head, should he keep being iBoy, his super-alter ego? Or go back to his normal life where he can be happy with the girl he likes?

Definitely an interesting story. I enjoyed iBoy. It has action, trauma and surprise. All such strong things in a book: action because you can never be bored, trauma because it's action with drama and surprise because you never know what to expect. iBoy had it all.

I liked the characters. None were too in your face. They all played their role in the story and were all really likeable. Except Ellman. He wasn't in my top list of characters. Apart from all the cruel things he did to people and what he done to Lucy(a girl who's brother joined in with the wrong crowd) he had something creepy about him. There was one part in particular that just gave me the chills:

'When I'd finished explaining everything, I finally looked up at Ellman. His icy blue eyes fixed on mine, his face emotionless'

He did really well for spiking my interest in iBoy, but MAN he was creepy. On the other hand, there was Lucy, a sweet, down to earth girl, who I enjoyed reading about. She was Tom's bestfriend(Tom is iBoy, the boy with the iPowers) and usually girls in stories like this are a tad snobby and don't really like the guy until the end, Lucy on the other hand was different. She was never mean to anyone that was in the story and she seemed to really enjoy Tom's company.

The overall story was good. It had a great, unique plot that really had you on your toes. It's really descriptive and it makes you feel like you're actually in the story. iBoy isn't really my type of genre, but I actually really enjoyed it. Which shocked me. Especially when I was halfway through the book and I didn't want to put it down.

iBoy is an incredibly intense page turner – seriously, don’t start reading it in your lunch break or you’ll never get back! There is no way to put this book down, after you’ve got a few chapters in you’re going to be there for the duration.

Unlike many ‘Young Adult’ books, this is not a ‘light read’. It is dark, gripping and intense, as it explores a world of gangs, violence, drugs and rape. It’s not graphic, and I dare say that the adult readers will find it far more horrifying that most young adult/teen readers, purely because of their years of cynicism, but it has a very strong sense of realism.

The concept of an electrical entity/robot/cyborg taking over the human brain is not an unknown idea in the world of science fiction, but it was a little strange to have the device be something as innocuous as a cellphone, no matter how advanced. But Mr Brooks does it very well, and it’s a concept that will probably be easier to relate to than the mysterious Borg and makes less of a stretch than robots taking over the world (terminator). It also allows for a wonderful pretence to really delve into how easily we can all be tracked and information is stored (it’s a shame he doesn’t use the medium to perhaps mention the dangers of posting ‘those’ photos on facebook).

Despite the darkness, there’s an innocence about Tom Harvey as he tries to adjust to life with ‘super powers’. He’s self depreciating, but also self aware.  And there is also a sense of lightness, of humour and quirks that comes through – adding to the realism in the story.

But, to be honest, I’d pretty much given up on explanations by then.  I mean, Spider-Man never bothered too much with explanations, did he? He just got bitten by a genetically engineered spider, acquired his super-spider-powers, frowned about them for a minute or two, and that was pretty much it.  He didn’t spend hours and hours trying to understand them, did he?

And the spidy references; I loved the spidy references! He’s got a grandmother (his guardian), who writes romance novels for a living, and he’s turning into spider man. He’s trying to help a child friend (who just happens to be a girl he likes) recover emotionally from a brutal attack, find his arch nemesis and rid the world of evil.

iBoy will be read with your jaw dropped, sometimes it’s a little too intense for the adult reader, but like a train-wreck, you just can’t take your eyes away. A very good book, from a writer who has honed his craft well.