Incredible Doom - Matthew Bogart, Jesse Holden

Book Summary

Welcome to a new age. The age of the internet.

Allison is drowning under the weight of her manipulative stage magician father. When he brings home the family’s first computer, she escapes into a thrilling new world where she meetings Samir, a like-minded new online friend who has just agreed to run away from home with her.

After moving to a new town and leaving all of his friends behind, Richard receives a mysterious note in his locker with instructions on how to connect to “Evol BBS,” a dial-in bulletin board system, and meets a fierce punk named Tina who comes into his life and shakes his entire worldview loose.

Unlikely alliances, first love, and minor crime sprees abound in this teen graphic novel debut about making connections while your world is falling apart.

The book follows different teens going through a range of life's issues, but they are all linked by the new computers they have at home and how they find a way to connect with strangers through a text messaging system called BBS - Bulletin Board System.

I really felt for all of the characters and what they were going through, bullying at school, manipulative parents, facing discrimination. But there was also a lot of support and connections and even some funny bits. Despite everything, Allison has a lot of humour. It's a very quick read but with a roller coaster of emotions. Sympathy for the characters, rage against the ones hurting them, frustration, laughter, and the ending even made me tear up a little.

I got a bit confused between the characters but I think I just need to pay a bit more attention when reading graphic novels. The temptation is just to whizz through the book but it's worth slowing down to take it all in properly. The emails were a bit hard to read, especially on the black pages. The finished copy will have much higher quality pages but I actually kind of loved that the proof felt like it was printed on paper from those old computers (yes, I really am old enough to have used one and probably still have some of the printouts! 😱 ) I also loved the nostalgia of the huge computers, cassette players and old style telephones.

The story is not really finished by the end of the book, but it still has a very satisfying ending. I really enjoyed reading this and now I need to know when I can get hold of Vol 2!

Commodore 64 Cocktail

I've slightly adapted and renamed a cocktail that reminded me of what was probably my first computer (though the Commodore No1 cocktail probably had a different type of commodore in mind). With ice, shake up 2 shots rum, 1/2 shot lemon juice, 1/4 shot grenadine and a dash of sugar syrup. Strain into a martini glass.