Point Blanc

By Anthony Horowitz

Novel

May

The book Point Blanc is a superb fast-paced book to read. It has amazing chacters and great setting. The way Anthony describes them give the sence as though you are standing in the setting and you can see whats happening.

The main story line is Alex, a fourteen year old school boy is sent to a school with nothing but a fake ID and a bunch of gadgets. Alex was sent to the Academy where boys who upset their parent are sent to become something their parents can be proud of. It is described as finshing school but this academy is hiding more scerects than it claims to show. First, the students are not allowed to go up two floors and a basement and there are guards protecting the school. And lesson don’t start for first couple of weeks and there are only two teachers on site:Dr Grief and Mrs Stellenbosh. The school is also built like a castle and everyboy as soon as start lessons have changed. They look the same and talk the same but they all eat in the same way. They do everything the same and they seem to just know what they are doing.

‘In a strange way, they looked the same.’

and ‘According to James the other boys had arrived at the academy two months before him. He had been there for six weeks. That added up to just fourteen weeks. in total and Alex knew that you didn’t take a bunch of deliquents and turn them into perfect stdents just by giving them good books. Dr Grief had to be doing something else. Drugs? Hypnosis? Something.’

Alex soon discovers he has to get up to the two floors above to see what is so strange about this school. ‘Then he looked again. He was leaning on a store dragon identical to the one on the ground floor. He looked at the fireplace. That too was identical. In fact -Alex wondered if he hadn’t somehow made a terrible mistake.’Point Blanc is a werid school but Alex wasn’t sent there because he was terrible. He is there on mission by MI6 to see what goes on at this werid school. Alex will soon discover that this Acdemy isn’t what it clams to be. These boys have been sent there because they get in a lot of trouble, this school claims they can change them. As soon Alex discovers that their intepratation of change is replace.

‘”You mean it belongs to the kids you’ve hired to act as doubles,” Alex said.”Hired?” Dr Grief muttered a few words to Mrs Stellenbosch in a harsh, guttural language. Alex assumed it must be Afrikaans. Her thinks lips parted and she laughed, showing heavy, discoloured teeth.’

The charecters that I found interesting were:James Sprinz and Mrs Jones. James Sprinz is boy who was sent to Point Blanc because he was thrown out of a school in Dusseldorf. He is 14, German, lives in Dusseldorf. Brown hair, brown eyes, pale. Father:Dieter Sprintz, banker, well-know financier (the One Hundred Million Dollar Man). Mother living in England. Expelled for wounding a teacher with air-pistol. He is a charecter I found interesting. I didn’t have many personal exprinces with this charecter, but there was one that stuck out for me. When James first meets Alex he learns that Alex is like him. I had this same exprince, when I was about 12 years old I meet a boy who lived a simialr life. I found out that live near to each other but we had never meet.I think this way I found him interesting. He interest me because of he seems to have a feeling that he knows what Dr Grief is up to but refuses to face it. It made me want to ask him what he thought Dr Grief was doing if I was at this school. Mrs Jones is senior officer of Alan Blunt (headed the Special Operations division of MI6). She is a serious-looking woman with black hair, badly cut, and very black eyes. She was from England. She wants to always help Alex and is worrying about him because he is fourteen. She thinks he’s special and the perfect secret weapon. She can’t bear the thought of losing him.

The messages I took away from the story are that some people are so cruel and that there is aiways light at the end the tunnel. The People who are cruel in this book are:Dr Grief and Mrs Stellenbosch. They are the only teachers at Point Blanc. They are so cruel to the kids and don’t really treat them well. When these boys have been at Point Blanc for a while Dr Grief clones himself and makes himself look like the boys and locks them up in a cell. They were caging them up like animals. I’m so glad that this isn’t a ture story because if it was I would have gone straight to parliament asking the goverment to shut down this academy. This is no way to treat these kids, I know they were sent here because they are horrible but that doesn’t give you a reason to put them in an cell. What’s worse is that the’re lying to the boy’s parents sayng they will change them. They send back the clone and keep the real boy locked up. The cells are in the basement, Grief didn’t let the new boys down there. He made that rule so the boys couldn’t find out what was going on. If I found what Alex discovered the first thing I would’ve done is tell police with some evidence. When Alex comes in with SAS men Dr Grief trys to get away for all this. He was a sick man, he should be locked up for life. There is always something great waiting for you even when your in a bad mood. In this story the person who shows this is Alex. Dr Grief and Mrs Stellenbosch think their plan will work and that they will never be caught. If the parents suspect something wrong with their son, they, hire an assain to take them out. But in the end they die and get what they deserve.

The challenges that the charecters face are very life threatening, but the only poeple who don’t face challenges until the end are: Dr Grief and Mrs Stellenbosh. I think the reason they got away with what they did for so long is because they were in the middle of nowhere, also guards and men with machine guns were at the bottom of the hill. But the person whose challenges are the hardest to over come was Alex because he was sent there to spy on the academy and he can’t let the teacher find out. Alex’s consequences could mean death or worse painful death. My thoughts on this book is the challenges are really hard to relate to because I haven’t been in many near death situations. The action that Alex takes are so deadly, that I couldn’t do what he did. If I was Alex I don’t think I would do the same action he did.

The title Point Blanc is the best fit. If I had to give it a new title it would Dr Grief. But still Point Blanc fits better than anything I can come up with. This title was chosen carefully and the title sprang out to me. This title immedetely got me interested. I wanted to find out what Point Blanc was about also what it was. When you chose a perfect title, authors have to think about what is the main part of this. They normally base it around the story line.

I recommend this book to anyone that likes a lot of action in a book. This book had me hooked as soon as I picked it up. I found it so interesting because once I had an assingment where we had to create a school. I called bad kids school and made me think about the diffrents and smiliartys between the book and my creation. I found this book one of the best and I recommend you pick it up, if get the chance.

Anthony Horowitz discribes the setting very well, I felt as though I was on moutain and I feel the cold breeze blowing through the air. It was like magic.