Snitch is a youth novel of note

Bulbring, Edyth:  Snitch( Tafelberg, 2016)

Ben and his two friends Tsietsi and William are just regular kids at school; Ben plays rugby and does well at school. He has a sister and mother, his father died, and his mother  is the person he can confide in; she never blabs.  But when he tells her that Adrian’s unexpected heart attack might be caused by steroids, she breaks their code of not telling by talking to a nurse and the story gets back to the school. This makes Ben an outcast; the boy everybody loves to hate. Ben is now the rat, the weasel, the sneak. “No longer Ben-OK. I was Snitch”.

This is the beginning of a very rough period at school. He is treated with disrespect, abused, and eventually his two friends are also targeted and this results in him losing his two best friends.

Will Ben survive this ordeal; is this the test of his personal strength? His dad left a letter for him with the following comment: “My hope for you is that you will have decided to stand outside the boxes that trap the ones who race with the pack”.

A brilliantly written utterly believable story of a boy and his experiences as a teenager in a school environment, but also with his family, Uncle Charlie , the dog Terror, the girl Elizabeth who he worships mostly from afar.

The writing is exceptionally good; written in the first person, Ben is the narrator, and the author does not waste a single word in telling a story which moves at a fast pace and keeps you involved. Bulbring is a writer of substance and noteworthy. I am sure the book will be well received and well read.