I found it quite hard to pitch this book. It seems to be being marketed as adult contemporary fiction but it really does read an awful lot like a YA novel. There's no complex plot or themes and, instead, seems to be a pitch to young men not to act like jerks. So, even more specific than YA, to me, this is a book for teenage boys. Though, quite why a boy growing up today would read a book set in the 1980s, I don't know. So, in summary, I'm not sure who this book is appropriate for, other than perhaps middle-aged men today who want to relive some small part of their youth....

Anyway, as you can probably tell, I wasn't crazy about this book. There are moments where it is genuinely interesting, and it has some nice swerves and loops in the plot, which give it some complexity. And it is a page turner - there's a strong narrative drive - but, by and large, this is not a book that has a lasting impact.

It's 1987 and we are hanging out with Billy, a 14 year old guy in small town America who is concocting a plan, with his mates, to steal a copy of Playboy so they can gawp over the Vanna White nudes that have just been published.

As you can imagine, 1980s references are everywhere. Though they aren't injected with any subtlety - Phil Collins on radios, comparisons with Police Academy characters, girls dressing like Madonna... (But actually the references can be a little out e.g. the girl dressing like Madonna was in laddered tights and fishnets, but that was 1985 not 1987, and a comment about U2 being a one-hit wonder doesn't make any sense when by this time they were already on to their fifth studio album., and dialogue has that 'like' inflection in speech e.g. I was, like, so impressed...' But that is a 1990s thing, not 80s. So though the 1980s is a big draw, it's not that spot on.)

Specifically, however, this story is about Billy's obsession with computers, particularly coding games for his commodore 64.. And, in that, this book is spot on. Billy is a nerd with a growing obsession with girls but none to talk to. So when his mates' plotting to steal a copy of Playboy ends up with Billy having to sweet-talk a shop owner's young teenage daughter, his head and his heart come into open conflict - he wants to still join up with his mates' planned escapade, but a growing affection for Mary, this young teenage girl, starts complicating matters.

The burgeoning relationship between Billy and Mary is one of the book's high points. It's believable, full of awkwardness, and Mary is a complex, well drawn character. But this is where a female audience will find this book difficult: Mary is portrayed as fat, and the level of bullying and taunts over her weight from the boys may be truthful (I was never a teenage boy, so I can't comment) but it is so enduring and ongoing in this book that it is hard to read. Painful, even. It is constant and you do feel, as a female reader, that this is a book not for you and it pushes you away.

The stakes are pushed high in this story, which is what makes it compelling, and the plans to steal this Playboy magazine soon get out of hand. And in both halves of the story - Billy's relationship with Mary, and the plot to break in to the shop with the magazine - I was pleased to see adult themes explored. In that way, this does make for an interesting coming-of-age story.

However, as a woman, I just wouldn't recommend this book to any other woman. There may be enlightening passages and themes here for men and young boys, but to a woman, it's just disappointing. And for girls, downright dangerous. We have enough issues with self-esteem in young girls without adding this to it.

Lively and well-written but not a style or story that attracted me sufficiently to want to continue reading after the first few pages..

This was a strange choice for me and I am definitely not the target audience, anything to do with video game and programming is enough to give me an aneurysm. That being said, I was a little puzzled about precisely who the book is aimed at. It reads very much like a YA novel but the young adults today seem unlikely to share it the nostalgia of the 1980s.

It's quite a fun story focusing on the antics of three teenage boys as they plot and plan to get hold of a particular issue of Playboy. Cue some ridiculous schemes including dressing as businessmen, posting an older stranger to but the magazine for them. Eventually they enlist the help of an older student of questionable character and dubious motives. Having bonded with the daughter of a store-owner over coding narrator Billy agrees to trick Mary into helping them get hold of the magazine.

The story is highly ridiculous, I struggled to believe that the characters would really follow-through with their plans or that they could really be so foolish but it is a mostly entertaining take off you just go along for the ride and overlook the paper-thin motivations and the eyebrow-raising lack of consequences for all the characters (except poor Mary). The happy ending was a little too pat but at the same time it was wholly in keeping with the rest of the story.

I hope Spielberg has already optioned this.
4.5 out of 5 stars.

When I first saw this book on NetGalley, all it took was a quick read of the blurb to convince me I would enjoy it. I knew I had slim chance of getting a copy from the US publisher, but I gave it a try… and failed. Cue bitter disappointment. So obviously I was thrilled when the UK publisher approved my request and it turns out my hunch was correct: The Impossible Fortress is delightful.

If you’re a fan of 1980s’ movies with a mostly teenage cast, such as Stand By Me, E.T. and The Goonies, please read this book. The main characters are all likeable and you find yourself capable of forgiving them almost anything, even Alf’s many questionable comments.

I loved all the computer elements which brought back fond memories of using a BBC Basic computer, floppy disks and playing Repton games. Of waiting ten minutes for the computer to boot up and then another ten for the modem to connect, all while marvelling at how incredible the technology was and never dreaming it could get any better.

Nostalgia aside, while most of the plot of The Impossible Fortress is fairly straightforward you should know there’s a jaw-dropping reveal close to the end. It’s not often a book surprises me this convincingly, and I take my hat off to the author for throwing me off the scent entirely.

Overall: a sweet story unafraid to throw some sharp edges and shocks at its readers. Immerse yourself in wonderful 80s’ nostalgia and remind yourself why you shouldn’t take your laptop and smartphone for granted!

I really enjoyed this book. The opening was funny and I thought the characters were really well developed. There were a number of times when I wanted to hit the main character for doing something really dumb, but overall I liked him as a character. I like that the blurb only shows you part of the story and that the story really develops and gets more complex as it goes. I loved the parts about video games and coding as it's not really something you read about everyday. I'll definitely pick up anything else this author releases.

Its 1987 and Billy, Alf and Clark are typical fourteen year old boys with fourteen year old topics on their mind such as the mystery of women. Oh to understand women in general and sex in particular. But then a miracle occurs. Alf come’s racing to share the news that Vanna White, star of Wheel of Fortune is on the front cover of Playboy, with her buttocks exposed. This sends the boys into overdrive; what might be revealed on the inside of the cover? They decide they will, by one method or another, own their own copies of this most mystical prize.

The final plan (after a few aborted attempts) is the idea of becoming close friends with the daughter of the store owner who sells the magazines, con her out of the security code and burglarize their way to magazine ownership. But in developing this ‘relationship’, Billy finds a kindred spirit. Mary is smart as a whip, confident and more than understands the code that make computers work. Billy has a secret dream; to become a game developer when such dreams didn’t really exist. He is capable of creating simple games and Mary encourages him to enter a contest to win a brand spanking new computer worth $4000. But Billy understands that he won’t be able to work out all the code by himself. The only other person he knows who understands code is Mary. So they begin to work together on the game The Impossible Fortress. During this time, Billy finds himself strangely attracted to Mary, even though he feels he shouldn’t, because his mates think of her as ‘the fat girl’. But he can’t help himself; she s his dream come true.

When the boys finally put the plan into action, things go awry. The senior from school that offered to help them has more than Vanna White on his mind; he wants revenge on the store owner for firing him and leaving him with a bad reputation in a small town. Somehow the whole store is trashed and Billy is left with deep guilt and shame. He wants to explain himself to the store owner and Mary, but legally he isn’t allowed near their store so he can’t make contact. Once again the boys follow a hare brained plan to get Billy to Mary and they undertake a journey to get to Mary’s strict Catholic school. Things don’t quite go to plan and suddenly Billy is confronted with the reality that Mary had major secrets of her own. In the end everything becomes clear and friendships are restored and every is happy ever after.

On the face of it, this is a cute book that is a simple, enjoyable read. It’s well written, snappy and the surprises leave you shocked to say the least. Buts it’s the normalisation of pornography that I take issue with in this novel. Its seen as completely natural to have Playboy and what that stood for as a central theme to a story. Indeed, there is a stick figure make from punctuation and mathematical symbols that represents a naked woman within the pages of this book. Also the depictions of women are less than complimentary, where they are judged based on looks and looks alone. And one of the main characters has a physical defect that he is extremely ashamed of. It might be on point of the time in the 80’s where the word cripple was spoken, but it was still jarring to read it in 2017. I don’t think it is an innocent coming of age story, or a sweet gentle love story. There are underlying themes that leave me as a woman feeling very uncomfortable and I'm really unsure about this book.

Four stars for enjoyment, maybe more like three and a half, but it was an easy and fun book and one that I believe many YA lovers would enjoy. It's almost as if the story wasn't meant for adults, because the author writes from point of view of a teenager in a very believable way. A hint of nostalgia takes the reader back to the days when computer games were a novelty and Playboy magazine was hard to get. Enjoyable and entertaining.

The Impossible Fortress Review

The Impossible Fortress is a sweet captivating novel that if full of nostalgia, wit and charm. It’s impossible not to be swept up with the inner workings of fourteen-year-old Billy Marvin’s mind as he battles his way in this novel and watching the teenager’s story unfold before us.

The book stinks of teenage boyhood but in a hilarious and frank way. When Billy and his two friends, Clark and Alf find out that TV sweetheart Vanna White, host of the Wheel of fortune, is on the cover of Playboy, they just have to get hold of it. It quickly turns into a mission where Billy has to befriend the local shopkeeper’s daughter to try and steal the magazine. Their plans to do so are eccentric and wild but incredibly endearing and believable. What keeps the book alive is its switch in relationships. There are so many interesting people coming into his life and how he juggles different personas with each of them. He is a keen coder and computer game inventor, which is what sparks up the relationship between him and Mary. When she tells him about a competition they can go in for together a new story and world opens up to Billy.

The books finest moments come from Billy’s inner narrative, trying to understand his friends and girls in particular is on point. The final stages of the book take a unexpected turn which changed the dynamic of the book quite quickly, but it just managed to work and the book had a seamless flow that meant once I had reached the books end I was craving more from Billy Marvin and wanting to know what was next for him beyond the Impossible Fortress.

I would think The Impossible Fortress should be described as YA fiction, although it’s not clear to me that it is being marketed that way – maybe because it’s set in the 1980s and therefore offers nostalgia to those who were coming of age at that time. In any event, the thing about YA fiction is that I rarely voluntarily sign up to read it, although when I do so I am not always disappointed. That sort of sums up my experience with The Impossible Fortress. As I started it and realized that it focuses on fourteen year old Billy, and his misadventures with lust, love, petty thievery and computer coding, I braced myself. But I ended up liking some things about The Impossible Fortress – most of all, Billy’s relationship with his mother, his tortured attempt to save face with his friends while pursuing the object of his affection Mary, a clever police interview, and references to the internet-less 1980s. Having said that, my three star rating reflects the fact that much of the book lacked any real depth. It was a quick entertaining read, with occasional real emotions, a bit of slapstick, a weird surprise and a happy ending (surely that’s not a spoiler). Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for an opportunity to read an advance copy.