Spud 2: The Madness Continues (2007) is John van de Ruit’s second offering in the popular Spud book series.
Spud 2: The Madness Continues (2007) is John van de Ruit’s second offering in the popular Spud book series.
Spud 2: The Madness Continues
By John van de Ruit
Published by Penguin Books
ISBN 978-0-14-353836-3
Price: R130
Rating: 5/5
Last month his Spud series earned him a new national award, the Nielsen SAPnet Gold Book Award for South Africa’s Best-selling Author.
This award is presented to a South African author who achieves continuously exceptional sales, but I digress.
The Madness Continues chronicles John Milton’s (Spud’s) second year at an elite boys-only private school (though mental asylum is probably a better description) in KwaZulu-Natal during 1991.
Spud is no longer the smallest or youngest boy in school.
The new first years (the Normal Seven) present easier pickings for the older boys, but Spud still has to navigate his way to manhood achingly while dealing with the insanity that surrounds him.
With a deranged and senile grandmother named Wombat, a father who sees communists everywhere and a mother determined to emigrate to England, the Milton family is the epicentre of much mayhem and embarrassment for our young protagonist.
Add women problems, a set of roommates who have a knack for finding trouble, a house play that threatens to render his future acting career stillborn and a boarding master intent on seeing his house’s second years expelled – Spud’s life is clearly not getting easier.
Van de Ruit writes with comedic genius.
The story is mostly in sharp and witty diary entries, and the colourful assortment of loony characters is more than enough to keep you paging from cover to cover.
You’re also bound to be hit with a bout of nostalgia here and there, recalling your own high school experiences. Hopefully they were a little less insane.
The Madness Continues is a wicked and side-splitting read.
For more information on the Spud series, visit penguinbooks.co.za.
The fourth and final installment of the series, Spud: Exit, Pursued by a Bear came out earlier this year.
