Alex has a brain tumour, he has just come out of hospital after having a hole drilled in his head. But he is also a teenage boy and has to sort out the strange behaviour of his hamster Jaws 2, the mysteries of his parent's marriage, school work and school social life. He has so much to learn, how to narrate his life as French schoolboy Serge in his exams, and how sex works from the acres of pornography on the internet.
Being of a certain generation my closest experience to Ostrich has been Adrian Mole, but Greene's first person narrator Alex is far far funnier and far more poignant, I was left literally howling with laughter at some points and reading bits out to family, both things I don't usually do. The ending is achingly sad, but Alex shines, the dazzling mind of a typical monosyllabic teenage boy opened up wide.
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