In Pig Boy, the same mistrust between mother and troubled son is easily spotted, with both characters separated by a huge void of wariness. In that book, a mother who developed depression after struggling to make a connection with her child realised too late when the child went on to commit a high school shooting spree. An example of a book in that genre is We Need to Talk about Kevin. There is a subgenre within the thriller based on the creation of monstrous children, which links many issues such as the relationship between mother and child, the rejection of a child in society and bullying to talk about this modern tragedy in society. This structure where the twist in the story is gradually hinted to you is put to great use in this book, drawing in the reader and even making them question their own judgments.

All the emotion locked up inside Damon is finally revealed in the charged and addictive concluding stages of the story. With continuous references to the Marshall brothers, and constant paranoia, Damon eventually reveals a gun, a murder that he witnessed. About halfway through the book you realise that something terrible has happened to Damon, something much worse than all his other horror stories.

Starting the book with this ugly description of a kid on his own, the hidden messages gradually reveal that Damon is not the monster in the book but the victim instead. The structure of Pig Boy really accentuates Damonâ€™s isolation. Itâ€™s this sort of fake sympathy that really made Damon mad, so he put Pascoe on his list. When the family received death threats in phone calls, and Damon recognized them as from a boy from his school, he came to Pascoe only for him to ignore his plea because that boyâ€™s father was funding new gear for the school. He pretended he cared about Damon, but that was a lie. The high school principle Pascoe, is the antagonist. Damon can only talk to one character freely, Moe at the corner store, and he loathes him as well. Damon and his mother stand out as the bully target of the town. Damon mentions his lists of names, how he will learn about guns, the horrible thing in his closet. Burke paints a picture, putting in small references to a dark shadow in Damonâ€™s mind. He is an angry character and always has an ironic outlook on those around him, in fact he loathes them. The main character is Damon Styles, a boy you donâ€™t know whether to sympathise with or be horrified by at the beginning of the book. This book revolves around the issues of the nature of bullying, the stereotypical views of the community, and high school massacres, yet puts its own spin on this within the genre. It is about a heavily disturbed and bullied boy, who is abandoned by everyone around him and only finds solace with another outsider and freak called the Pigman. Pig Boy (2011) is a Thriller and a Drama written by J.C.

Pig Boy by J.C. Burke