The Boy Who Would Not Weep

To Santiago, everyday life has become an unbearable punishment and the idea of suicide, fascinating and terrible, comes up to his tortured mind frequently...Everything changes when he meets Lucía, the new girl. Friendly, intelligent and gifted of great sensibility, she’s the only one capable of discovering the entreasured inner self of the strange and lonely boy. Something extraordinary starts to happen to Santiago. He hides, under his apparent shy surface, an unexpected strong, indomitable and sometimes dark personality.

But the cruel chasing continues, each time more obsessive and violent; but Santiago has decided to not let himself to be defeated, he endures it in silence, without complaining... without crying. Until that this nightmare also reaches his only friend and the fragile sanity of the boy ends up breaking in a devastating and terrible way.

The boy who would not weep: the true face of bullying constitutes one of the first novels that present the cruel and true face of bullying. With a straight forward and austere language, Jiménez-Barbero brings a shocking story, with no cracks, straight to the point, whose mission, being read and understood by all audiences, is perfectly fulfilled since the narrative rhythm allows a complete immersion, without flourishes, in a story that sometimes can be read as a documentary.

Ultimately, that’s what the novel is about, a cry of alarm issued by someone who has lived in the first line of fire. The author has worked as a police officer in a problematic that’s neglected by a culture obsessed by violence in all its forms.

That being said, The boy who would not weep: the true face of bullying is a must read to all parents whose children are teenagers, but also to those that think that this problem keeps them at borders and comprehend up to which point a boy’s darkness can reach up, making him even deny the tears.