What is your bish bash bosh potential? That is the overriding concern for the main protagonist in Gotta Get Some Bish Bash Bosh. And what is this bish bash bosh stuff? It’s slang for self-confidence and swagger among the boys across the pond. As the narrator says, keeping a girl is “flipping hard and soaks up all your dosh.”
Dosh is money. I know this because Allen’s book has a glossary at the back. The glossary is useful—and needed; and that is the only real negative I have about the book. Having to look up the meanings of the words stopped the reading process. Had the book been less well-written I might have stopped reading, but the narrator's voice is hard to resist. Allen opens the story with a strong voice and keeps it going right to the end. The story is entertaining, and the author has done a great job in flipping the usual teen romance and giving us the story from the guy’s perspective.
Now, I would tell you the narrator’s name but it’s never given. Another small irritant that might have proved fateful had the story not been so strong. The gyrations this fourteen-year-old boy goes through to win his girl back after he’s been dumped include a new haircut, a new diet, a new go at sports, even a new girl. This is a fun book. The narrator is witty and moves the story along at a fast pace. There is real power in his voice.
The book, written by a mother-son writing team in the U.K., was originally released in the U.K. in 2003. This is the first U.S. printing. I enjoyed Gotta Get Some Bish Bash Bosh. I think it will appeal to its intended readership. The only drawback is the slang but the glossary does help and, I confess, it’s fun to find out what bangers, berks, bog rolls, buttys—not what you think—and pongs are. Telling you whether our hero finally achieves “It Guy” status would not be playing fair. You’ll have to buy the book and find out for yourself.
I don’t think you’ll be disappointed.
--vikk simmons, Down the Writer's Path
Article comments
1 - jadester
i've never heard anyone use the term "bish bash bosh" here, so that's probably a region-specific slang, but the rest, any british citizen older than about 6 should know.
For those unaware:
bangers = sausages, as in bangers and mash
berks = kinda like idiots. there's probably some actual dictionary definition, but it's generally used along with the many more-or-less interchangeable lesser insults we have here. It's also one of the lesser-used ones, you're more likely to hear a mockney gangster character in a Guy Ritchie movie use it than an actual person
bog rolls = toilet rolls. As in, a bog = a toilet
buttys (plural) (actually, butties i believe), or a butty (singular) = sandwiches with slices of bread as opposed to cobs, which are bread rolls. Generally, the term butty is reserved for only a few British specialties - like chip butties.
Pongs = again, i've never heard anyone use this word as a verb, but at a guess i'd say it means fart. As in, pass wind.
2 - vikk
Jadester,
Thanks for our comments. I think they give a different definition for pongs but I'm at work and the book's at home. I'll check later.
For the U.S. audience, the terms probably sound very different but I found it made reading interesting.
3 - DrPat
Egg Butties - an addiction I developed while working in Slough, lo! these many years ago. And "pong" means any putrid smell.
Incidentally, while I was working in Africa, a Polish co-worker named "Bog" (short for Bogden) was the butt of many jokes, until he had all the guys over to his house for a braii. (That's BBQ in ZA.)
4 - alienboy
Vikk, consider it an English lesson; apart from pongs, which i've never heard used as a noun, none of those words are slang, just English as it is actually spoken...
5 - Eric Berlin
Is this fiction or non, Vikk? I'm guessing it's fiction but I'm not sure.
Also, is it aimed at a Young Adult market? The mother-son writing team leads me to believe it might be.
Nice job on this review.
6 - Maron
Oooh, I just read this book and it was pretty good. If I was a guy i would want some bish bash bosh, too. ^^
Btw, I'm 14.