Will he or won’t he? Have sex, of course. Malcolm is sixteen. With the mind of a scientist, the body of a teenager, and an ambition to reconcile the two, he embarks upon his latest research project—sex. Join Malcolm on his journey, as he meets the cast of characters who will take him a little closer to the centre of life’s mystery.

Will Charlotte find true love? Will Kevin get his man? How did Juliet lose her virginity and will Malcolm get what he wants?

Malcolm and Juliet is a multi prize-winning, farcical comedy by one of New Zealand’s best writers for young adults. Bernard Beckett can write whatever he wants and always does it with prodigious style.

Praise for Malcolm and Juliet:

‘Vigorous and lively characters… Beckett has always had a wry humour in his excellent novels about young people on the brink of life, but in Malcolm and Juliet, the humour is in charge. This is one of those novels you carry around quoting from…The characterisation is deft, the plot cunning and the treatment as light as a pavlova. This is a butterfly of a novel, high-spirited, light-hearted, and funny right to the last line… Let me urge nervous librarians, parents and teachers to buy several copies of Malcolm and Juliet. And to read one of them.’

— Trevor Agnew, Magpies

‘A candid and funny look at the issues of teenage sex and sexuality (including homosexuality)… It is refreshing to read a gritty story about teenage angst where nobody dies or gets pregnant. This novel…would make a great movie.

— NZ Herald

‘Every line’s a winner in Bernard Beckett’s brilliant, tongue in cheek book…Sweetly hilarious farce… Pure bliss and a joke in every paragraph.’

— North & South