Noah Can’t Even by Simon James Green
20 May, 2017
Poor Noah Grimes! His father disappeared years ago, his mother’s Beyonce tribute act is an unacceptable embarrassment, and his beloved gran is no longer herself. He only has one friend, Harry, and school is…Well, it’s pure HELL. Why can’t Noah be normal, like everyone else at school? Maybe if he struck up a romantic relationship with someone – maybe Sophie, who is perfect and lovely – he’d be seen in a different light? But Noah’s plans are derailed when Harry kisses him at a party. That’s when things go from bad to utter chaos.
Simon James Green grew up in a small town in Lincolnshire that definitely wasn’t the inspiration for Little Fobbing – so no-one from there can be mad with him, OK? He enjoyed a classic British education of assorted humiliations and barbaric PE lessons before reading Law at Queens’ College, Cambridge, where he further embarrassed himself by accidentally joining the rowing team despite having no upper body strength and not being able swim. When it turned out that being a lawyer was nothing like how it looks in Suits or The Good Wife, and buoyed by the success of his late night comedy show that involved an inflatable sheep, he travelled to London to pursue a glamorous career in show business. Within weeks he was working in a call centre, had been mugged, and had racked up thousands of pounds worth of debt. Finding strength and inspiration in the lyrics of Tubthumping by Chumbawumba, he eventually ended up working on a range of West End shows and UK tours, co-wrote a feature-length rom-com for the BBC and directed Hollyoaks for C4 / Lime Pictures. After trying really, really hard, he also managed to write Noah Can’t Even. If you are interested in stalking him, he still lives in London, where he spends a lot of time telling people that Noah Can’t Even is only partly autobiographical, and his mum has definitely never done a Beyoncé tribute act.
Noah Can’t Even by Simon James Green
Hi All!
Today is my stop on the Noah Can’t Even blog tour and I am here today with a fab guest post from Simon about things you need to know about Noah!
First though, look at how funny this book sounds!
About the Book
Poor Noah Grimes! His father disappeared years ago, his mother’s Beyonce tribute act is an unacceptable embarrassment, and his beloved gran is no longer herself. He only has one friend, Harry, and school is…Well, it’s pure HELL. Why can’t Noah be normal, like everyone else at school? Maybe if he struck up a romantic relationship with someone – maybe Sophie, who is perfect and lovely – he’d be seen in a different light? But Noah’s plans are derailed when Harry kisses him at a party. That’s when things go from bad to utter chaos.Top Ten Things You Need to Know About Noah Grimes
by Simon James Green
- Haribo or Skittles will solve everything. Honestly, he’ll roll over and play ball if you offer up these.
- He’s top set for everything, but his nemesis is Maths – especially mental arithmetic, which has bought him to tears before now.
- His middle name is a closely guarded secret because it’s ridiculous, and given to him as a joke by his mother, who took the inspiration from the Transformers movie.
- He doesn’t come from a wealthy family – in fact, they’re totally skint. But that doesn’t stop Noah being very grand when the mood takes him. I mean, why can’t his mum cook something worthy of a Michelin star restaurant for dinner? Fish fingers or nuggets? No, no, no. Noah wants a pan-fried duck breast on potato rösti, thank you very much.
- Things that really wind Noah up: Americanized language; people jabbing at the ‘open door’ buttons on trains before the driver has activated them; people claiming they are ‘gutted’ when really it’s just a very minor disappointment, not really akin to have all your intestines removed.
- Noah’s favourite Agatha Christie novel is The Murder of Roger Ackroyd because it’s very clever and you don’t spot who the murderer is. But don’t ask him about it because he’s terrible with spoilers.
- Noah is mildly asthmatic, has no upper body strength and fairly crap hand-eye co-ordination, ergo, PE is not really his forte. Nevertheless, the school unreasonably insists on his participation, something Noah considers to be in breach of his human rights. Like the right not to humiliate yourself on the football pitch… and the right not to be seen in the showers by the other boys in your year…
- Noah gets quite flustered and hot under the collar if you mention anything to do with… (whisper it now), s-e-x. He’s just not that comfortable talking about it – possibly because his mum is so open and in your face about everything sex related, it’s had the opposite effect on Noah.
- Even though he’s nearly sixteen, Noah still sometimes gets his Lego out. But he doesn’t follow any instructions to build particular things. Instead, he uses it to model designs and ideal layouts for things like airports, hospitals and shopping centres.
- Noah has an ardent dislike of France following an incident on a residential trip in Year 8. Want to know what that humiliating little episode was about? You’ll find out in the sequel, next year!
About the Author
Simon James Green grew up in a small town in Lincolnshire that definitely wasn’t the inspiration for Little Fobbing – so no-one from there can be mad with him, OK? He enjoyed a classic British education of assorted humiliations and barbaric PE lessons before reading Law at Queens’ College, Cambridge, where he further embarrassed himself by accidentally joining the rowing team despite having no upper body strength and not being able swim. When it turned out that being a lawyer was nothing like how it looks in Suits or The Good Wife, and buoyed by the success of his late night comedy show that involved an inflatable sheep, he travelled to London to pursue a glamorous career in show business. Within weeks he was working in a call centre, had been mugged, and had racked up thousands of pounds worth of debt. Finding strength and inspiration in the lyrics of Tubthumping by Chumbawumba, he eventually ended up working on a range of West End shows and UK tours, co-wrote a feature-length rom-com for the BBC and directed Hollyoaks for C4 / Lime Pictures. After trying really, really hard, he also managed to write Noah Can’t Even. If you are interested in stalking him, he still lives in London, where he spends a lot of time telling people that Noah Can’t Even is only partly autobiographical, and his mum has definitely never done a Beyoncé tribute act.Follow the Tour
