Book Review: Old Bag, by Melvin Burgess

Melvin Burgess is one of the big names in teen fiction. When I did my MA in Writing for Children, I was required to read not one, but two of his books (Junk and Doing It). They were both gritty, controversial, and well written. He has received awards and a lot of media attention, as well as thousands of loyal teen readers.

So when I saw one of his books for sale for 20p at the library, I thought it was a bargain. I bought the book and quickly read it. I would have been better off keeping my 20p.

Old Bag, by Melvin Burgess, is a prime example of a bad book happening to a good author. I know that Burgess is capable of writing better books-he has done. This book, however, was one of the least enjoyable reading experiences that I have ever had. The only good thing I can say about it as that at just 74 pages, at least the disappointment didn't last too long.

So what made the book so bad? We'll start with the story. It's about the crime world, two warring mafia families and a petty criminal stuck in the middle of it. Throw in a truly heinous old woman, snitches to the cops, and some serious violence at a Christmas party. The thing is: there's no twist. There's nothing to make this an interesting story about the crime world. Not only is the story fairly cliché (how many bad movies have already been made with the same story line?), it is lacking in depth. The book was intended to be a fast read, and it is. The problem is that it's too short. It lacks any development of the characters. None of the characters have any depth or seem real. The result is that you're reading about people that you couldn't care less about. You don't really care if they get arrested or beaten by a rival mafia family because they are never believable as people. Now, I don't mean that we need to learn about their childhoods or their secret dreams or anything like that, but they do need to be developed more. Right now they're like paper-doll characters. You can see what they are supposed to represent, but they are lacking any depth or appearance of reality.