Book Review- Boys of Blur

For the Full House challenge and the library reading challenges I read N.D. Wilson's novel Boys of Blur.

Synopsis from Goodreads: When Charlie moves to the small town of Taper, Florida, he discovers a different world. Pinned between the everglades and the swampy banks of Lake Okeechobee, the small town produces sugar cane . . . and the fastest runners in the country. Kids chase muck rabbits in the fields while the cane is being burned and harvested. Dodging flames and blades and breathing smoke, they run down the rabbits for three dollars a skin. And when they can do that, running a football is easy.  But there are things in the swamp, roaming the cane at night, that cannot be explained, and they seem connected to sprawling mounds older than the swamps. Together with his step-second cousin "Cotton" Mack, the fastest boy on the muck, Charlie hunts secrets in the glades and on the muck flats where the cane grows secrets as old as the soft earth, secrets that haunted, tripped, and trapped the original native tribes, ensnared conquistadors, and buried runaway slaves. Secrets only the muck knows. 

I've enjoyed all of N.D. Wilson's books so far and Boys of Blur was no exception! Think Beowulf as a boy's adventure novel and there you've got it! As you may remember, I read Beowulf at the beginning of this year and loved it so of course I couldn't help but love Boys of Blur. I'll admit it was a trifle confusing at some points and I think if you haven't read Beowulf you will probably find it very confusing but the thing about me is I just keep reading a book no matter how confused I am, maybe looking back to see if I can figure something out but most likely not even bothering to and in the end it all comes together and I don't care how confusing it was. Probably not a good policy over all but that's how I roll. I read too fast to... that's another bad policy I have. :(
I liked the characters in this story and I liked that N.D. Wilson gave them real issues that many children today are facing... child abuse, step-parents, divorce, ect. They aren't huge themes but they're definitely there and I like how they're dealt with.
Overall I thought it was a great boy's adventure novel and I handed it to my younger brother to read next as I'm sure he'll enjoy it too. :)

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