Johnny Lonely has lots of friends...

How the fictional eponymous hero of Pete Tanton's Johnny Lonely created a profile on popular "social networking" website MySpace remains a mystery (Pete swears he had nothing to do with it!) but here it is. But Johnny seems to be making friends - or "virtual friends" - and quite a motley selection of them, some with rude names and in various states of undress! If, unlike me, you have any idea what any of this means, you'll want to add yourself to Johnny's friends list at www.myspace.com/johnny_lonely. Explanations of how this whole Myspace / Facebook thing works are welcome to be posted here as comments!


Meanwhile, UK readers are beginning to post their reviews of Johnny Lonely on amazon.co.uk. Alison Hicklenton says it's, 'A great read and a great starter for all sorts of discussion.
In years to come students will be talking about this book as being as seminal as Louis Sachar's "Holes".' Dr Halcyon S Leonard ('REAL NAME' according to amazon) calls it, 'A wonderfully observant and penetrating picture of suburban America.' And Rhoanne May says, 'The writing is honest, original, clever and witty. I do hope this will be the first of many books from Pete Tanton!' The current rating is given as 4.5 stars out of 5, although my rudimentary mathematics knowledge says it should actually be 4.83 out of 5, which is quite a recommendation.

Johnny Lonely is officially released on 30 July, but both amazon and Tonto are shipping it already, so snap up your copy now!

Paul