Free Pizza - G.C. McRae
Book Synopsis: Brian McSpadden is always hungry. Does he have a disease? Worms? Does it have something to do with his being adopted? He spends his days at his crazy friend Danny's house, hoping for snacks, but nothing seems to fill the void. Then Brian receives a mysterious birthday card that says, Free Pizza. He soon discovers the card has nothing to do with food and everything to do with the big questions in his life: where did I come from, why did my mother give me up and is there anyone out there who will like me the way I am?
Interview with the Author, G.C. McRae:
Your book is all about the friendship of these two 12-year-old kids. Any parallels to your own life?
Absolutely. I grew up in an era when parents literally pushed their kids outside to play between dawn and dark. Summer, winter, five feet of snow, it didn’t matter. We were given a time to be home and that was it. So I spent far more time off with my friends than I ever spent at home with my parents. And we spent it playing, talking, joking, laughing. I tried to bring some of that to Free Pizza, where the kids are still constantly together and still not interacting with their parents, but for a different reason: video games and cell phones.
Sounds like you had a lot of freedom as a child.
We all did back then. We thought nothing of hopping on our one-speed bikes and going on a 25-mile trip out of the city - that’s 25 miles one way. Then we had to come back. No water, no snack. Just a pair of cut-off jeans, a t-shirt and runners, and off we’d go. My friend Claude - to whom Free Pizza is dedicated - reminded me the other day about playing down at the railroad tracks. Normally we’d lay pennies on the rails to let the train flatten them and small rocks, watching them explode. But this one day the engineer asked us if we wanted a ride, so we hopped on the train and went about a mile down the tracks. Of course, our parents knew nothing about it.
What kind of a kid were you?
Catholic school in the 1960s was pretty violent. Having a good day meant not getting beat up. Thankfully, I had more good days than bad. There were several pranksters and jokesters in my school. I was just one of many. By grade seven, I’d learned to make friends with the biggest, toughest guy in the class. He was a giant fellow with a wicked sense of humor. I sat behind him and muttered hilarious things all day.
How did that inform your writing?
The humor-as-defence mechanism is obvious. Making jokes all day, constantly thinking in puns and double-meanings, I’m sure it honed my literary skills. That, and having to copy dozens of dictionary and spelling book pages for bad behavior. The otherwise-evil nun who came up with that one did me a big favour.
How did you ever get from cracking jokes to writing novels?
My friends all went to university after high school. I saw no reason to because I already had a job and wanted to get out of my parents’ house. Anyway, my friends all came back from philosophy and math and physics class spouting big words and bigger concepts. I had no idea what they were talking about and felt like a complete moron. So I started reading. And not just grabbing any old book. I was determined to educate myself in a systematic way. I started with Ovid’s Metamorphosis, then this huge abridged version J.G. Fraser’s Golden Bough. Apparently, I had a thing for myths and folktales.
You proved that with your previous book, Seven Tales. Is that how you got into writing fairy tales?
I guess I did. I just love a great story. Naive stories, the literary critics call them. But don’t get me wrong, I’m a sucker for style and inventive technique. I’m a big fan of pure literary fiction, academic fiction, if you want to call it that. But when it comes to my own words on paper, the biggest challenge is writing a really good story, taking a reader on a journey that feels completely familiar and yet excitingly fresh. I just love that.
Thank you to iRead Book Tours and G.C. McRae for gifting me a free copy of Free Pizza in exchange for my completely unbiased and honest review.
To be totally real here, I didn't know what this book was going to be about when I first heard about the title. My first thought was Free pizza? Sign me up! Of course, there is more to this book than it's title and although I craved a slice of free pizza, I knew that I was going to be in for a treat. G.C. McRae is a very talented and prolific author. He has written several books in the past and continues to write with creativity and enthusiasm.
What really caught my attention about this book wasn't just the fact that it had something to do with pizza, but the fact that Brian is so easy to relate to, regardless of his family background or as a character in general. "Brian McSpadden is always hungry" and I saw that first line on the back of the book and immediately saw myself. As an adopted young boy, he wants to fill this void and this journey that is chronicled in this book, and I had to constantly remind myself that it was in fact not a real person, but in the genre of Middle-Grade Fiction.
McRae definitely had a specific target audience in mind and he absolutely nailed it. This book was written so well that I, being a young adult definitely appreciated how thoughtful and funny the book ended up being.
We all have this void in our lives, and like Brian, we look to things to fill the emptiness. For me, I've turned to books to occupy my time, in the past it has been other vices like binge watching TV or even stuffing my face with unhealthy food. Not to get too personal, but Free Pizza definitely made me think - it opens the conversation to topics that are hard to discuss with younger kids - adoption, self worth, and how important it is to have a support system.
Never have I been left thinking about my life and how things are going because of a single book - it is almost an understatement to say that it was uplifting and I really enjoyed the ending. In all fairness, even though I didn't get sent a free pizza, I was more than satisfied after reading the book Free Pizza.
I will be recommending this book and look forward to reading more from this author in the near future. This book can be found at your local bookstore or any online retailer such as Amazon.com
Thank you to G.C. McRae for writing such a beautiful and special book.
Rating: ★★★★★ 5/5 Stars!