After reading “New Boy” by Roddy Doyle, I can empathize with the main character, Joseph, who has to live with moving to a new school.

He has to live with being different by having a lower IQ than the rest of the students. This is more obvious when the local bully, Christian Kelly, threatens him by saying that he is dead. At first, he was confused since he knows that he is not currently dead and that he surely means that “he will be dead.” The reason why I empathize with this scene is that I also struggle in a new school and have an abnormal mind compared to the other students around me. Because of this I also tend to think in weird ways when communicating with others.

There is also the scene where Joseph starts showing off his intellect by solving the math problems that Christian gives off during their exam. He keeps saying “17” since it is the closest answer.  After that, he still says “17” to piss him off. This also resembles part of my life by having to show off how smart I am to piss off whoever in my school that tries to belittle me from my indifferences.

After Joseph finished his test, he counts all the students around him. He counted twenty-three (including himself) with five empty desks remaining. Then differentiate everyone based on their appearances. The most intriguing is the girl sitting behind him; he wonders if she is Irish judging by her Irish appearance which he is not familiar with. As usual, the reason this is relatable to me is that during my time in school, I would also peruse the entire classroom to count how many students there are. And then take a closer look at their appearances to find out which race and ethnicity they belong to and finding out which type of manner I should use when communicating with them to fit their culture.