Introduction: “Friend” by Diana Henstell is a science fiction / horror / romance (?) novel originally published in 1985 . I read this in e-book form .

Quote : ” Piggy , you’re a basketcase . We can’t just run off, two lads , with a corpse . What would you do with it ? “

Summary : Imagine this , your a 13 year old boy genius named Paul who made his own robot but everyone calls you Piggy ( even your mom thinks it fits ) , your parents got divorced because your dad wanted a younger model , an accident in a school lab gets someone killed and everyone suspects you might have done it on purpose . So you and your mom move to a nowhere town with a bunch of people who are intimidated by your intelligence and your robot . One night a drunk jackass destroys your robot . You’d say life sucked right ? But it starts to look up as you become close with the girl next door . Oh what’s that ? The drunk from earlier is her father … and the father ends up beating her to death in a drunken stupor as well . What do you do when you’re a grieving boy genius who just lost the two people ( yes the robot counts ) you care about the most ? Try to resurrect the girl with parts of your robot of course ! Then this story really kicks into gear … but you’ll have to read that part yourself .

Quote : ” Piggy was reading his mother’s thoughts , following the jumbled fears , worries , love that sprayed out like machine-gun bullets . “

Review : It’s a mad scientist story set in the 1980’s , of course I loved it . One part family drama , one part young love story , one part tragedy , a tale about grief , death , the responsibility of creation , and it has a cyborg deadgirl causing mayhem in a small town . If that appeals to you by all means read it ! As a side note I’ve now got Alice Cooper’s ” Teenage Frankenstein ” stuck in my head now and would also recommend that .

Quote : ” He didn’t suppose there was any chance that they’d let her be now , not after she had choked Harry to death . Murder , after all , took precedence over resurrection . “