About the Author

Bernard Beckett is one of New Zealand's most popular writers for young adults. He is a high school science teacher and has been awarded a NZ Science, Mathematics and Technology Teacher Fellowship to explore DNA mutations. He is also the author of the award-wining YA novel Genesis, which has been published internationally, and Falling For Science. Clare Knighton is a former student of Bernard's and this is her first book.

Reviews

Meet Pete, an unfulfilled and under-performing borderline genius in his last year of school. Waiting in line at popular burger chain Prince of Burgers, an itch-in-the-brain decision leads Pete to jump the counter and start handing out free burgers. Inadvertently, Pete becomes newsworthy overnight, inspiring the similarly disillusioned Sophie to set up a website in his honour. The popularity of the website ignites a global movement, whose impact does not escape the watchful executives of Prince of Burgers, who begin an increasingly sinister and violent campaign to silence Pete, the boy who unwittingly started it all. While Beckett often allows the voice of Pete to dissolve into an exhaustive anti-everything polemic, his writing contains enough stylistic flair to keep the narrative churning, and this balance certainly reflects-and will appeal to-the faux world-weary mindset of a 15 to 18-year-old. Sophie's sections (written by Knighton) almost seem to belong to a different book. Through the techno-speak of a prodigious computer hacker comes a story of Sophie's almost deranged infatuation with Pete, a trait that doesn't quite compute with the ending. Despite these shortcomings, Deep Fried is a compulsive, intelligent read, with enough thriller elements to keep older readers hooked. Chris Currie is a bookseller at Avid Reader bookshop in Brisbane