Leah
Written on Nov 30, 2016
I very rarely see such a well written kid-adult friendship, without it being weird. But Ambrose and Cosmo’s friendship is amazing. I liked how Cosmo was reluctant at first, but Ambrose weaselled his way in and they were quite a Scrabble playing partnership. They really brought out the best in each other, I felt, because Ambrose could see past Cosmo’s previous issues – his jail sentence, the drugs, etc, and instead just saw Cosmo, a guy trying to put his life back on track and Cosmo didn’t see Ambrose as a weird nerd, who couldn’t keep his mouth shut, he just saw a kid desperate to get out more, to make friends, to play Scrabble, the simple things in life, y’know?
I thoroughly enjoyed Word Nerd. Susin Nielsen has been a revelation to me this year – I adored We Are All Made of Molecules, and I’ve loved Word Nerd just as much, and I look forward to getting stuck into her previous two other books. She’s an outstanding writer and I absolutely adored Ambrose, from his Scrabble addition, to his friendship with Cosmo (proper bromance stuff!), to the Canadian setting (OH CANADA!!!!), to his inability to know when to shut up, everything about this book was sweet and adorable and I loved it.