The Bone Sparrow, by Zana Fraillon

There needs to be a copy of this book in every school, every library, every hospital in the Western world. There needs to be a copy pushed on to every person that has ever been heard to say "Why don't they just go home?", "I have no sympathy for those savages and scroungers in that Jungle" and "We have enough refugees". FWIW, I've heard all of these fairly regularly in day to day life.

The Bone Sparrow starts with a red and mysterious sea lapping at what is revealed to be the tent of Subhi- an imaginary sea that visits him sometimes and leaves treasures from the father he has never met, across the sea in Burma.

Subhi has never seen the real sea. Nor Burma. Nor anything that exists outside the fences of the detention centre in which he was born. With his sister Queenie and his listless, inert Maá, and hundreds of other refugees that arrived illegally by boat to what is revealed to be Australia, Subhi waits. They eat low-nutrition, out of date food. They cower from the angry, violent 'Jackets' who keep order in the centre. They crowd into rat-infested tents, with itchy, parasite riddled blankets. They get ill and die waiting. They scuff around in the dirt, hoping for a while, then resigning themselves to the fact that nobody cares what happens to them. Nobody is bothered what goes on behind the wire and the fences because these are not people. These are problems. Burdens.

The book begins with Subhi and his friend Eli running packages around camp- swapping soap for toothbrushes, underwear for bottled water, things like that. We get a sense of the resentment of the Australian guards for the refugees that they keep corralled; their occasional, inexplicable cruelty, their unpredictability, their indifference. All except for one nice one, called Harvey that behaves like an actual human.

Subhi's existence is pretty grim. No school, no future, no way out, he consoles himself with stories. He draws the stories and the memories of the older detainees, because he has no memories of his own. He lives for stories of hope and escape, of tall trees and fresh air. The monotony of camp life is broken one night when Subhi meets Jimmie- a scruffy, curious little girl form the outside who slipped under the fence. She brings with her new stories, the story of the Bone Sparrow that she wears around her neck. It tells the story of her own immigrant family, generations before, who survived due to the luck of the sparrow. Through Jimmie's friendship and companionship, and her flasks of hot chocolate, Subhi starts to see the power of hope- he starts to see what his sister and Eli have seen all along; that they should matter, and they should never give up on the idea of freedom.

I loved the characters in this novel. I loved Subhi's cheekiness, his inextinguishable hope and thirst for stories. I loved his imagination and his fierce love for what remains of his family. I loved how he tried to ease the suffering of everyone around him, even the rats. He is the absolute embodiment of compassion, even when he has no reason to ever be nice to anybody. Jimmie too was a curious, spunky and intensely likable kid who befriends first and asks questions later. Equally enthralled by stories, she turned Subhi's into somebody who thinks and waits into somebody that takes action; they made the best team.

It's a book that is unexpectedly funny in places, and inevitably tragic in others. The injustice and the inhumanity of Subhi's existence is powerfully depicted, and the book is a real empathy tonic. I defy anybody who reads it to not condemn the way the World treats those who are in need. The luxury of peace and relative stability is something that we in the UK, America and Australia (to name a few) take for granted, almost feel that we deserve as a matter of course, and desire to keep for ourselves. It amazes me how people act like they are born within the arbitrary borders of a peaceful nation down to their own good merit and foresight, not through sheer chance and co-incidence.

I can only hope that this becomes a modern classic- the Boy in the Striped Pajamas for the modern humanitarian crises. I hope demand to see it on the Carnegie list, and on any other list that anybody cares to put together, because it is so essential.

Ruby, by Cynthia Bond

This is certainly not an easy novel to read- the ritual animal sacrifices, lynching, suffering, sex trafficking, child abuse, incest and misery. The novel’s two main characters, Ephram Jennings and Ruby Bell meet once, right at the beginning, when they are about seven and six. It’s a memorable but traumatic meeting- Ephram is beaten to a pulp, Ruby is subjected to a sort of rustic exorcism behind the closed door of a witch-like forest dwelling voodoo woman, Ma Tante. Bruised and bloodied by the boyish Margaret, Ruby’s cousin and sole protector, Eprham will never forget Ruby’s beauty or her braids, and will carry this image of her for the rest of his life. Ephram catches one or two glimpses of Ruby over the next decade in church and in the town, but their paths do not cross again until Ruby returns from New York after 13 years away.

Raised by his sister after his mother went crazy and his preacher father was lynched by white men, Ephram begins as a pious, routine abiding character. Bagging groceries at the market, handing all his wages over to his domineering, coddling and manipulative sister, Celia his ‘mama’ since he was 14. Her only aspiration in life is to become the Church Mother, something that was almost a given until Ephram took the notion to spoil everything.

Ruby escapes Liberty to New York in an attempt to re-invent herself and for a chance to find the light-skinned mother who abandoned her as a baby. It’s unclear initially just what horrors Ruby is truly escaping; her childhood will be revealed to Ephram via flashbacks as the novel progresses. New York seems exciting, glamorous, seedy. It’s the closest thing to equality available to “coloured” folks in 1950s America. It’s not much different for Ruby though- she resorts to the same skillset as she’s always used to survive, detaching her mind from her body whilst it does not belong to her.

Upon her return, accent slightly lost, her first lost spirit in tow, judgemental stares from the townspeople redoubled, Ruby spends another 11 years slowly going crazy. Avoided and derided by the community, she talks to spirits, lives alone on her family’s land, filthy and detached, just wandering the woods and wailing. We later learn that the spirits she obsesses over, hundreds of them, are the lost souls of the murdered children that wander the Piney Woods. One of the worst part of Ruby’s story is that she is by no means the only person to have been used in such a way. She soothes their pain and gives them shelter in her battered body.

The people of Liberty Township, the devout, church-going community, seem to view Ruby’s troubled mind as inevitable recompense for what they see as waywardness, her sinfulness, her unusually pretty face. She’s brought it on herself. What the township chooses to turn its blind eyes away from is incredible. The injustice of it is so frustrating- the men and boys that have abused her and taken advantage for decades condemn her for her wickedness. The book’s most powerful point is the things that happen under our noses that we choose to ignore.

If the reader’s heart breaks for Ruby from the beginning; they are thoroughly ruined by the end. As Ruby becomes more lucid, as Ephram diligently coaxes her back from her spirits and her torment, she fills in the gaps of her life with horrific details. We learn that the ‘boarding school’ that Ruby was sent to work at is nothing more than a brothel, that she has been passed from pillar to post ever since that first meeting in the woods. Various lynchings, escapes and desertions within her family left her without an adequate carer and she fell into the evil, horrific hands of the very people that would be expected to save her. The author makes a powerful point about evil being something that can occur anywhere- literally anywhere without exception. Evil is a powerful and uncontrollable thing, which is made all the more surprising by the ease with which it can be hidden.

Ruby is a beautifully written book, full of a kind of old, trickster magic, evil spirits and the horrific weight of history. But it’s also about patience and kindness, and about tackling injustice, no matter how insurmountable it seems, or how ill-equipped one is to do it. I loved the quiet diligence of Ephram, as he acts on the feelings he has harboured for decades. He cleans Ruby’s house, washes her clothes. Painstakingly and lovingly washes her hair. He listens to things that she has lived, things that she has bottled up all her life. He treats her like a person again, and Ruby doesn't know how to act. Her behaviour is so divorced from her feelings, she has literally no idea how to be act when shown kindness. I liked that there are still good people, who will still do selfless things, even if it is years overdue.

I know I haven’t really done justice to this book- I could never get across the depth of its effect on me. It’s a haunting book that tells the story of a life of such unimaginable cruelty and dehumanisation. It’s shocking and raw and brutal, told in a style of prose that is disarmingly beautiful. I can see this willing the Bailey’s Prize this year (and it would be a well deserved victory)

for its honesty, its lyrical prose and its brilliantly crafted mysticism. It would be easy, with a plot so laden with misery and trauma to become melodrama, but the characters are so balanced and so well realised that this never happens. An incredible novel.

There Will Be Lies, by Nick Lake

There Will Be Lies, is Lake's third appearance on the Carnegie list since I've been following it, but I have to confess that TWBL is the first one I've read. The book starts of ordinary enough- modern day Arizona. A dry, dusty, infinitely flat place that has been Shelby Cooper's world since she moved from Alaska as a baby. Homeschooled by her mother and obsessively shielded from the outside world, Shelby is intelligent, naïve but with an appealingly defiant, snarky attitude. The book's other location, "The Dreaming" shows up later on- a mythical space that exists beyond time and before our World and is inhabited by figures from Native American folklore, some of which can pass into the real world.

When the over protected, apparently super-vulnerable Shelby is knocked down by a car when standing outside the library, a coyote appears with the message that "There will be two lies. And then there will be the truth". This cryptic, bizarrely delivered message starts off a chain of events that ultimately highlights how fragile our sense of identity is. Shelby discovers that everything her world is built upon is nothing more than a flimsy web of lies and deception and that her whole reality is threatened by the newly revealed truth. Though I don't want to give too much away, I do want to mention that the final section of the book, post truth, I found to be the most thought provoking and certainly the most emotional. How do you deal with a discovery like that? It's a really unexplored perspective of an unusual crime. 

The theme of identity runs thickly throughout the book. Do we change as we get older? Are we always the same person? What makes us the person that we are? What does a person take into account when building their identity? *Do we* build our own identity or is it built for us? What's left when somebody takes those things away? Do we ever really know ourselves or the people around us?

I really liked Shelby as a character, she was sarcastic, clever and kind of lippy which makes her a really believable, authentic feeling teen girl. I liked her little asides to the reader (the one about her mom's Pyjama jeans especially made me laugh). When Shelby discovers she can enter The Dreaming, she is given a mission by Coyote (Capitalised, as in the archetypal trickster or lore, and AKA Mark, hot library guy). Shelby must rescue the Child and kill the Crone, or the world will end. It seems fairly high stakes and there isn't much contextual information available. It transpires to be a quest with more personal consequences to Shelby than it initially appears.

In the possibly real, possibly metaphorical world of The Dreaming, the Crone has kidnapped and imprisoned the Child to give her more power. Archetypally evil character that she is, this is preventing the rain from falling, parching the land of The Dreaming and starving its majestic wildlife. It's a fairly by-the-numbers quest, complete with animal helpers, flimsy frayed rope bridge and slavering wolves, but it takes on a new significance as Shelby starts to unravel the lies in her own world. I liked that it's never really made clear how concrete the Dreaming is, but the mirroring of the Draming's problems and Shelby's real-life crisis is skilfully managed and it adds a new dimension to the plot. Whilst I found the real-world Thelma and Louise scenario to be much more gripping to read, I can see what this fantastical fantasy world added to Shelby's story, and it provided her with the perspective and the tools to do what she needed to do in the real world. 

It's hard to talk about this book without giving too much away. It's a twisty, intelligent and original thriller that throws some surprising twists at the reader- there are a lot of OMG moments that the reader needs to feel for themselves in order to even attempt to grasp the extent to which Shelby must be reeling. The story is at first glance quite far-fetched, but it's constructed in a way that makes the whole thing quite believable and ultimately tragic. 

I really enjoyed this novel, though oddly I'm not in any hurry to backtrack and read his other titles. There was something about the frantic, mysterious concept of this novel that appealed to me in a way that the others didn't. It really is a very clever book that asks questions about identity, family and love. Shelby's mother, a character I've not really talked about because she's the one that all of the titular lies are orchestrated by, is a really interesting character- she's a good example of how duplicitous and contradictory a person can be, You can never really know. If you enjoyed this, I'd recommend Magonia by Maria Dahvana Headley, another book that features a dual reality, a protagonist with a quest and a disability (that only applies in one of the Worlds too, snap) and a really likeable, believable teen girl at its centre,

I do think it will make the Shortlist but I'm not sure about taking home the title- we'll have to see who else makes the final 9.

A Spool of Blue Thread, by Anne Tyler

Spanning 7 decades and 3 generations of the Whitshank family, A Spool of Blue Thread is a sprawling tale of social climbing, family, the desire for something that somebody else has and belonging. Providing the location for the majority of the story and becoming almost a character in its own right it The Whitshank House. With a sweeping porch running the whole way round, the house is an impressive Baltimore home built by Junior Whitshank by his own two hands, lovingly maintained by his son Red throughout his life, and with homing-pigeon power to call the (not exactly scattered) members of the family home to roost. The house is truly the heart of the Whitshank family. its building and eventual acquisition passed on from generation to generation as family legend.

Much time is spent examining the relationships between spouses, siblings, parents and children and the bonds and resentments that define such relationships. There's a lot of things that go unsaid, and many whispered discussions and secrets. A lot of the story is built around Abby, a hippyish hands-on mother of four, a wife, a daughter-in-law. We see her whole life, out of sequence, but still, from her modest background, her courtship with Red's friend and then Red himself, her relationship with the original Mrs Whitshank and then onwards through life...When we first meet Abby she is in her 40s, stressing over a brief phonecall from Denny, the flighty and commitment-phobic prodigal son. She is fierce and assertive and vital. But we see her begin to deteriorate, her memory and her mind start to decay. Families, as a concept go on, even though they lose members all the time.

The book's other characters include Stem, a kind of modern day foundling adopted into the fold who grows into a dependable and protective man, his evangelical and well-meaning wife Nora, sisters Jeannie and Amanda, a joiner and lawyer respectively and various assorted husbands, children and dogs. The prior generation of Whitshanks feature too, Linnie and Junior, who seemed for all the world a happy and successful family, prospering from the opportunities that post-depression America had to offer. Naturally they had secrets and forgotten stories of their own- a scandal and an estrangement and all sorts of secrets that weren't well known enough to become legend.

I liked the sort of hazy, oppressive summer heat vibe that this book gives out, its drifting narrative that lazily winds its way through 3 generations and leaves some enigmatic blank spaces for the fourth. I like the suggestion that families are infinitely complicated, complex and different, and what seems normal to one family might seem absurd to another. The family in focus, the Whitshanks, consider themselves to have excellent taste, to always be the ones who reach out to those in need, reassuringly old fashioned. In reality they're fairly ordinary; they're wallowing in secrets and resentment and bitten-back harsh words that they could never actually say. They love each other unquestionably, but they don't seem to always like each other all the time. So normal.

I really enjoyed reading this, much more than I expected- I'd expected a domestic tale of romance, hardships and triumphs. Which I guess it was in places, but with so much more depth and nuance. I really enjoyed and understood its themes of family and legacy and the inevitable passage of time. I liked too how the recurring element of never being satisfied, of always wanting what a friend or neighbour kept rearing its head to just keep happiness at bay. I liked how even the most apparently perfect, wholesome families, with their wrap-around porches and their annual beach holidays have their secrets and their scandals, and that sometimes they're lost to history and forgotten...but it doesn't mean that it never happened. I really liked how the passage of time sort of roughs off the edges and redefines what's passed. It was a thought provoking book that dealt with undiagnosed mental issues in Denny, with his anxiety and his self hatred, with dementia and elopement and the anguish and loss of ageing, but it wasn't wholly about any of these issues. It's just about the random pot-luck of life and the assorted events and issues that arise in any and every family. 

I was reminded in many places of  We Are Not Ourselves by Matthew Thomas (the social mobility, the three generation narrative, the dementia, the prodigal son with his detachment and relationship issues) but also the family that's normal until you dig too deep and lives in a beautiful house seemed to come from the same hazy summer memory stock as E. Lockhart's We Were Liars, and the family legend until it becomes fact reminded me of the first couple of chapters of Donna Tartt's The Little Friend. This was my first attempt at an Ann Tyler novel, and I'm certainly not averse to trying one of her other 19 works now I've enjoyed this so much.

In A Land of Paper Gods, by Rebecca Mackenzie

Born in China to British missionary parents dedicated to saving the souls of the Chinese peasantry, Ming-Mei is bundled off at the age of 6 to the Lushan school. Perched on a staggeringly beautiful misty mountain of spiritual importance, Lushan is a boarding school for the children of British missionaries, somewhere that offspring can be conviniently stored whilst the parents are off continuing God's work. Despite most of its pupils being being born and raised in China, Lushan is strictly English, and Henrietta S. Robertson is to be Ming-Mei's name from now on. She is to learn to be a good Christian so that she too can grow up to bring the Gospel to the more overlooked and remote corners of the globe. The main section of the novel opens in 1941 and concentrates on Etta's story from the age of 10.

A wildly imaginative daydreamer, Etta is somewhat alienated from her dorm-mates, many of whom are quite humourless and pious; middle aged women in little girl costumes. She craves attention from Dorm mistress Aunty Murial, a young Scottish missionary who takes the girls on brisk mountain walks and paints their portraits in watercolours. Etta immediately strikes the reader as an incredibly lost and lonely girl, adrift from her idolised parents (snapped like the symbolic red string of Chinese departure custom) and noticeably different from the other girls. She is desperate to be special, revealing herself a prophetess in direct contact with God and subsequently she sets about making prophecies, declaring the others Prophetesses too (Hark, it is the Lord's intent) and unknowingly laying the foundations of tragedy, trouble and ostracism. From the very beginning she suffers from a bit of an identity crisis; she is Etta to her peers, Henrietta to the Lushan staff, Samantha the Prophetesses during the days of the Prophetess club, self declared 'Mother' to Twelve, a local toddler she befriends and Ming-Mei when outside of Lushan. Whilst Etta as a character is mischievous, funny and strong willed, her identity is paper thin and is constantly being switched and altered.

I really liked Etta as a character, her voice was incredibly strong and full of life and humour. Yes she makes some bad decisions, but she's been so unguided and left to find her own route through her most formative years. Her imagination gets her into trouble; good intentions have tragic outcomes. The other girls are curious about her vivid games and she has no trouble enticing them to join in, but they're lightning fast to point the finger when things go wrong, quick to declare her fantasies 'silly games'. She's a very vivid person, full of plans and ideas, she climbs trees, gets her knees dirty and indulges in mean thoughts about people then worries for her immortal soul. I especially liked her clashes with Big Bum Eileen, Dorm A's queen bee and unofficial opinion-influencer. So chosen because of her burgeoning womanly figure, Eileen is bossy and eager to see Etta ridiculed or punished, safe in the knowledge she has the backing of the rest of the weak-minded girls. It was not difficult to Empathise with Etta, born into a doctrine she appears to have no heart for, left to fend for herself, fighting it out with the other girls for the approval and affection of Aunty Muriel. I like that she went her own way and pleased herself, no matter how much trouble it got her into, or how unpopular it made her

I loved Mackenzie's descriptions of the wild peaks of China, the lush forests and the living mountain, the mists, waterfalls, crumbling temples and the delicate flowers. I loved the idea of the 'Thin Places' where people are spiritually closer to the other world. Lushan, for all its strange evangelical inhabitants, seems like paradise. It makes the war, gathering pace around them, seem all the more remote and impossible, until it is right at their door. When the war arrives and evicts the staff and the children from their home, Etta has to grow up rapidly. The third portion of the book shifts the narrative to a Japanese civilian interment camp and we see a child's eye view of malnutrition, black markets and berri-berri, which reminded me a little of The Narrow Road to the Deep North, only without the building of the railway. Interred with the rest of Lushan's staff and students, the only relationships Etta has ever known crumble; Aunty Muriel is now just Muriel, no longer her guardian, she is now someone who looks after the sick, her Dorm mates are now just 'other girls'. She's no longer a pupil, not really a daughter. She's totally on her own.

With its themes of religion, identity, war, isolation, displacement and being caught between two vastly different cultures, I was really impressed with In A Land of Paper Gods and thoroughly enjoyed reading it. I loved Mackenzie's mystical and evocative prose and her Huck Finn-ish protagonist, a parent-less girl left to navigate the boundary between right and wrong. I found that the structure of the book really worked too; the inclusion of a few pages from Muriel's diary were really interesting additions as it showed how repressed she was, how much she cared for her girls but wan't really supposed to show it. Muriel became a much more rounded character during her time in the Japanese camps, when she stopped being a Missionary and became a survivor. It's such a compelling and haunting story, part coming-of-age, part love letter to China, part boarding school tales. The second Sino-Japanese War is an interesting and eye-opening backdrop, an era and a War that I didn't even know happened and seen from the perspective of a child, it's fascinating. 

Joe All Alone, by Joanna Nadin

When his mistreated Mum and her bullying, layabout boyfriend Dean go to Spain for the week, 13 year old Joe Holt is left home alone in their dilapidated old flat in Peckham. With £10 for the electric meter and plenty of pasta and beans in the cupboard, Joe has big plans for his week- chocolate for breakfast, as much telly as he wants and unlimited XBox. The anxiety in his stomach, the treading on eggshells tension, the waiting to do something wrong and waiting for the shouting and smashing vanishes, and for the first time in months Joe starts to relax.

Don't answer the phone or speak to anyone. Don't go out or people will report you. These are the only rules he's been left. But on day 2 he accidentally befriends a girl on the landing- the runaway sort-of granddaughter of the Jamaican bus driver across the hall, Otis. So that's one rule broken- but who's going to know? Joe waits for his mum to return, enjoying his freedom and his new friendship with the feisty, celebrity-gossip reading cat-eyed Asha. Asha makes Joe feel good- like she knows him properly and can see past the scruffy flat and his counting tics, and the fact that he loves buses. Their unlikely friendship grows, as the two spend the school holiday on the buses, in the parks and looking at the parakeets- two top-floor fugitives in a dodgy block of flats

Until the day of his mum's return comes. And then goes. With no sign of her or of Dean.

With the money running out, electricity off, cupboards empty, bullies pummelling his face in and some serious-looking gangsters hammering at the door until 2 in the morning, Joe knows his luck in running out. He's going to have to find a more long-term solution for his problem. With his stained and stinking uniform, his greasy hair and unwashed face, it's not going to be long before one of the teachers gets involved- Joe's been told about the ones that pretend to be on your side and then get you landed in care.

There are some excellent characters in this book; kind-hearted Otis, a real gentleman and good Samaritan who was unceasingly lovely, despite Dean's low (and totally unreasonable) opinion of him, the rebellious and fast-talking Asha, and Joe, who I was really rooting for. I hated how grim his life was- the name calling at home and school, the teasing for this anxiety counting and specific interests. I hated that he believed people when they told him he was good for nothing.

The book manages to combine realism and hope really effectively. It feels gritty enough for a MG book, Joe describes his life, Dean's family, his depressing flat with the no pictures on the walls and the stained, dirty furniture. There's the suggestion of domestic abuse, drugs and alcoholism, but it's not over-worked. Joe knows it happens, but he's pretty vague about the details. Same with his Mother's obvious psychological abuse at he hands of Dean- Joe just tries to stay out of it- resigned to the idea that his mum has chosen Dean and this is just how his life is now...the same can be said for Joe's OCD and obsessive traits. They rear their head from time to time, but it doesn't become 'his thing'. Generally, it's pretty clear that Joe is an ordinary kid that comes from a very impoverished, unstable background and has no real outlet for his fears or feelings. I'm glad he found Asha.

Joe All Alone is a really quick, uplifting read that deals with neglect and poverty in a gritty but realistic way. The ending is far from fairytale, and much more mundane real-life than the adventure that it starts off as. It's filled with some memorable and relatable characters, and no magic solutions for all of life's problems. It reminds us that families are complicated, people do stupid things, that thuggish, small time crooks will always take advantage of the weak and that it's important to forgive, but sometimes the thing that you want isn't necessarily the best solution. 

Very much recommended.

The Fishermen, by Chigozie Obioma

The Fishermen is a biblical Cain and Abel type story of prophecy, fate, grief and brotherhood, set in 1993 Nigeria against a backdrop of political upheaval and disappointment, broken promises and extinguished hope. The plot follows Ben and his brothers, 4 promising young men from a middle class background, as their aspirations, hopes and entire lives start to crumble. It's the first title from 2015's Booker Shortlist that I've tackled so far, and I quite fancy its chances.

The story is narrated retrospectively by an adult Benjamin, the fourth brother of 6 siblings, as he recounts a chain of events that began when he was 9. The family's eventual collapse is set in motion when the father, an intimidating and ambitious man with high hopes for his sons is transferred to a different branch of the Central Nigerian Bank, 'camel distance' away. As a result he is forced to leave the family home. He leaves his wife to look after the four older sons and 2 toddlers. Without the long arm of the law wielded by their father, Ben and his brothers Ikenna, Boja and Obembe take advantage of this disciplinary lapse to take up fishing in a forbidden and possibly cursed river. Over the course of six glorious weeks, the four brothers get much joy from fishing and delight in their catches; singing songs, dancing dances, bonding. Though they know they will be severely punished if caught, fishing becomes an addiction to them and the danger seems almost abstract. Ben, the youngest of the four is in awe of his stronger, bigger brothers, and his love for them is obvious. On the afternoon that changes their lives, they meet the village madman Abulu, sprawled naked under a mango tree near the river. Feared by the superstitious residents of the town due to the accuracy of his predictions, Abulu's prophecy foretells that Ikenna, the eldest, will be killed by one of his brothers; will be killed by a fisherman.

It's this prophecy that begins to erode the bonds of brotherhood between the four. Ben talks with fear and sadness about the 'metamorphosis' of his brother- the prophecy, combined with a vigorous beating from his retuned father (with extra lashes for being the eldest ad therefore most responsible) Ikenna's whole personality begins to change. He becomes surly and argumentative, fights with Boja constantly; he becomes disrespectful to his mother and spends all his time holed up in his room- not eating, not washing. Scared of his increasingly erratic behaviour, Boja moves in to the room shared by his younger siblings, away from Ikenna. Their struggling mother despairs at her eldest son, convinced he has been possessed or affected in some way by evil spirits. As Ikenna continues to assert his dominance, the three brothers are pushed to the limit of their nerves, and it ends, predictably and inevitably in tragedy.It's quite Macbeth-esque, the dwelling over the prophecy, the fear and paranoia it creates. It escalates and escalates, until death and revenge and grief is all that's left. It makes the reader wonder about the nature of free will, and our ability to make decisions, about whether or not we are actually the authors of our own misadventures or whether they were in store all along.

There's the contrast between tradition and the modern that seems to be at the core of so many African narratives present in The Fishermen too; the Christian faith upheld by many of the characters is forgotten at times, replaced with superstition and folk-stories; the switching between English, Igbo and Yoruba languages, depending on the topic at hand. Then there was MKO, a symbol of the hopeful future, compared with the dictator of the present. The contrast between the real, logical world of science and the folkish world of curses, demons and spirits. The characters, like Nigeria itself are trying to forge their own identities- it's a coming of age story for the brothers and for their homeland.

I thought this was an evocative narrative that was skilfully spun; the dust of the roads and the acrid heat of the Nigerian summer were incredibly real, and the tension was very skilfully maintained throughout. Even from early on the book has a foreboding inevitability to it. It was hard to read about a family being so thoroughly destroyed, even if it seemed like the only way that events could play out. I loved too how the political situation that forms the backdrop of the novel reflects the fates and fortunes of the Agwu family; promising, hopeful, then ruined.

All in all it was an engaging and tense read that really transported me to its time and place. I became really invested in these characters, particularly Obembe, who seemed so full of rage and sadness. The transformation of the family towards the end of the book is pretty heartbreaking, and it's easy to see what effect shattered dreams have on the mental and physical well-being of a family. A really accomplished debut.

Dandelion Clocks, by Rebecca Westcott

Throughout Dandelion Clocks Liv narrates us through her life from "Thirteen Weeks Before" to "Six Months After". The book begins with a scene that many 11 year olds can relate to; after sneaking out to get her ears pierced, Liv is discovered. then yelled at by her super embarrassing mum in the accessory shop, in front of all the cool girls from school who are going to assume she's a loser. Correctly, because she's nearly 12 and has never had a boyfriend.

When we first meet Liv, she is quite selfish and immature. But she is only 11, so we can forgive her. She spends most of her time avoiding Moronic Louise at school, daydreaming about Ben, taking photographs and keeping her older brother Isaac out of trouble, who has Asperger's Syndrome and gets very agitated if his carefully planned routine is disturbed. Liv doesn't see why she can't have her ears pierced and why she, the younger sibling, has to be the responsible one. Her parents are so uncool and strict and unreasonable.

However, Liv has to grow up fast, and all of her little problems and petty complaints suddenly seem unimportant. It starts with her mum out of the blue showing her how to cook a bolognaise and how to put on make-up, she takes her to buy her first bra (unnecessary as of yet), and loads of new clothes. She takes her to get her ears pierced. Something is wrong- though they're having fun, Liv keeps catching her mum looking sad and she keeps crying all the time- not proper crying, but Liv notices the silent, single tears slide down her cheeks.  We learn, along with Liv, that her mum is really, really ill and is unlikely to get better.

It's through this tragedy and upheaval that Liv's character really starts to develop. We see how much she loves her mum and dad, what good care she takes of her big brother and the talent and passion that she has for photography. It seems contradictory, but it their family seems to grow closer and more united in the face of Rachel's death, and in a way it forces them to really make the most of their strong bonds. Obviously, it also makes everything seem all the more tragic and unfair. Liv is gifted her mum's diaries from when she was 12, in the hope that there might be answers in there when her mum isn't around to ask...These diaries give us (and Liv) insight into the life of a pre-teen Circe 1989 and it shows us that being 11 is stressful and excruciating and full of the same embarrassments and anxieties, whether its in the 50s, the 90s or the 00s.

I love how relatable this book was and how ordinary all its characters seem. The sudden loss of a family member is something that can and does happen to anyone, and the ordinariness of Liv's home life just reinforces that, Losing somebody so important at such a young age must be impossible to deal with, but I think that she handles it well- hitting rock bottom where even getting out of bed seems impossible and working up from there. I like that it shows that you don't have to have led an extraordinary life to have an impact on the lives of the people around you.

All in all, it's an emotional but heart-warming story about grief, bereavement and friendship that would appeal to fans of Jacqueline Wilson  and Annabel Pitcher and readers of A Monster Calls. It is sad, there's no getting away from it, but it's also a touching story of picking up the pieces and resolving to carry on with life. There are lots of themes of memory, loss and family and in places it's genuinely funny. Liv's friendship with BFF Alice is well portrayed (Alice is incredibly supportive and gives Liv space when she needs it, but she's there waiting when Liv is able to continue with her life) and I liked that while the book does give Liv a love interest (she is 12 after all, it would be weird if she didn't have some sort of crush) .

Concentr8®, by William Sutcliffe

Set in a future London, Concentr8 is a prescription drug intended to help kids with ADD and ADHD. Once teachers recommend which troublesome, unfocused or overly-active kids should be put forward for the programme, 95% of those suggested are on the drug. Soon the ADHD epidemic becomes quite manageable with these behaviour altering medicines. It prevents downward spirals into crime, suppresses excessive energy, makes them more manageable and less prone to violent or aggressive behaviour. The attached disability living allowance directed to parents makes things easier too. Better for teachers, better for parents and better for society as a whole, right?

Overnight, funding for Concentr8 is slashed and the drug is withdrawn. Rioting, looting and disorder ensues, as a nation of violent criminals revert to their feral state, tearing the capital apart. This violence is not really the focus of the book, but the smokescreen which allows the plot to unfold. Amidst the chaos of the summer riots Troy, Femi, Lee, Karen and Blaze, kids who have been on Concentr8 for longer than they can remember, kidnap a nameless, faceless office worker from the mayor's office and abduct him, chaining him to a radiator in an abandoned warehouse. What starts off as a spur of the moment laugh, something they do because they can, turns into a media frenzy that there's no walking away from. A tense five days follow, as the teens struggle to realise what they have done- no demands, no motivation and no idea what's going to happen to them now.

The narrative jumps around as each of the teen characters takes their turn as narrator. We come to understand why they're angry (even if they don't see it themselves) and they gradually reveal their thoughts and anxieties. Each of the kidnappers had a unique voice and outlook- they worried about the same things in very different ways. The narrative style of the teens is very colloquial, which won't be to all readers' tastes, but here I thought it was used very effectively. It gets across that these kids are at the bottom of the social pile. No ambition, no hope, no role models, little education and no future. I found the alternating perspectives to be really insightful, and I really liked how the narrator would switch between the teen voices, then change to one of the adults; the floppy haired, power thirsty Mayor, a journalist investigating the policy surrounding the drug's introduction and withdrawal, occasionally the hostage and infrequently but hilariously the police hostage negotiator, who is simply an idiot. As the reader pieces together the fragments uncovered by the journalists, and through the snippets of books, journal articles, tweets and testimonies that begin every chapter, we start to see what the sinister motivation and rationale is for the widespread prescription of Concentr8. It really gives a heist narrative a political thriller edge. 

I liked that this book tackled a different mental health problem- depression and OCD are increasingly prevalent in YA fiction, so I found this topic to be of immense interest. I don't believe the novel was too hung up on presenting accurate portrayals of ADHD, but instead focused on the difficulty of diagnosing and treating such invisible, complicated and varying mental conditions. It asks is medication always the answer? Especially when you consider how difficult it is, naturally, to diagnose mental illness? This was at the heart of the story really, how easy it is to write off bad behaviour and social problems as mental disorders. Over-diagnosis and misdiagnosis misrepresents mental illness but to explain away deep-lying social problems as mental insufficiencies is an arrogance and an injustice that it's all too easy to imagine Westminster stooping to. The book also opens up the always fascinating debate about nature versus nurture. What is the underlying cause of mental health problems? Is it part of out genetic make-up? Are we born predisposed to metal illness? Is the clock ticking down the moment we're born? Or is it a result of environmental and social factors?  The politicians of Concentr8 don't really care, they just slap on the same label and medicate the social problems away.

I found this to be a compelling and thought provoking book that looks at the shadowy relationship between politicians & policy makers and the corporations or individuals that benefit financially from the effects of the policies they make and enforce. It asks interesting questions about the way that society is manipulated and managed, how we label people, particularly  children, and how between the media and the government, we really have no idea what's going on, what the real problems are or who to blame.

If you liked this book, look out for  these:

The Hit by Melvin Burgess- another smart, tense YA read. Explores social collapse, youth drug use and the search for the ultimate high at the ultimate price.

Nobody Saw No One, by Steve Tasane- if the colloquial dialogue added to your understanding of the characters, try this. An updated Oliver Twist, but set in the 21st century wake of Operation Yew Tree. The book looks at how the rich and powerful can satisfy their perversions and buy silence and anonymity.

If you're feeling brave and don't care who knows it, go for Brave New World, by Aldus Huxley the original drug-based utopia, where society is so afraid of its own feelings and emotions that everyone collectively blocks them out using Soma, a drug designed to induce utopia.

Thanks to @LizzSkelly for the copy :)

The Blind Assassin, by Margaret Atwood

Spanning the economical, political and social turmoil of the entire 20th century, The Blind Assassin is a sprawling epic about the life and times of Mrs Richard Griffiths, formerly Iris Chase. Wife of a rising politician and admired philanthropist, daughter of a well respected businessman, granddaughter of a pioneering entrepreneur, mother of a wreck and sister of a tragic cult novelist, Iris is constantly defined throughout her own story by her relationship to others. It's not that she lacks the intelligence or the judgement to be her own person, it's just that she doesn't know who she is supposed to be. Living through a time of great social change, Iris comes across as lost and abandoned and drifts through her childhood, adolescence and adult life avoiding making decisions or raising her voice, presenting a persona of simple acquiescence and all but sleepwalking through her life.

Born into money but neglected by her eventually alcoholic single-parent father, Iris and her younger sister Laura have the run of their impressive house- checked periodically by household battleaxe Reenie the housekeeper come cook. Iris is one of the few people to fully understand her younger sister- her frank way of speaking, her literal interpretation of language and events, her oddness.  A bit of a metaphysical evangelist, Laura's trusting nature and warped logic cause her many problems throughout the course of her life and certainly play a part in her tragic death.

The novel starts with Laura's death, then expands into the past and the present. Narrated by 80-odd year old Iris some 50 years after Laura's accident/suicide, the plot jumps backwards and forwards through time. Iris slowly reveals more about her childhood, her loveless but financially strategic marriage, her complicated relationship with Laura and her own weakening grasp of life. Much harder and more stubborn in her old age, Iris is almost unrecognisable from the conflicted and mixed up young woman she one was. It seems that it's just her memories that attest to her real identity, and obviously her secrets.

Within the novel are assorted newspaper clippings and reports, and chapters lifted from The Blind Assassin, the only novel by Laura Chase. A scandalous volume on its posthumous publication, the novel sees a socially elevated Woman character engaging in clandestine meetings with a politically charged Man and conducting a passionate, secret and altogether confusing affair. The Woman is assumed by all to represent Laura Chase, and the Man Alex Thomas, a communist fugitive and supposed Bolshevik that the sisters sheltered in the loft after the war and before he disappeared to Spain to join the uprising. Within this (fictional) novel, the Man is also composing an episodic narrative of his own, also entitled The Blind Assassin; a pulpy science fiction affair, featuring the titular blind assassin, sacrificial mute slave girls, ray-gun toting lizard men and besieged Eastern empires. The Woman waits eagerly for each meeting in order to hear more of the story, composed just for her by her borderline abusive fugitive. It sounds crazy and unmanageable, to have three stories going on at once, all with the same name, but it works (how could it not work with Margaret Atwood at the helm?) and more details are revealed about the lives of the Chase sisters through the fictional novel. It has since been recategorised as an unduly forgotten classic, much to elderly Iris' annoyance.

As Iris reflects back on the course of her life, she gradually infuses her memories with truths she knows now that she was unaware of at the time. Her whole history is shredded by hindsight and missed opportunities, which makes her an incredibly powerful and tragic narrator. A pioneer of her generation, Iris struggled to find her way on an unmarked trail. The bitter and shambolic old lady in her tumbledown house is left as the sole survivor of a legacy of shame and secrets, lies and perversions. She's not above hiding a few secrets of her own too, though, the discovery of which throws the whole novel on its head.

I absolutely loved this book. I loved how complex its structure was and how rich the world of the narrative was. The shabby doughnut shop, the knock off holiday decorations from Myra's tat emporium. I loved the details that made present day Iris so real. The way the three Blind Assassins built upon each other's stories and filled in literal and metaphorical blanks was amazing. Iris is such an insanely complicated character- strong in her own way (you would need to be, just to survive a marriage like that) but also guilty of a lot of oversights. I'm not convinced that she always thought she was doing the right thing, even if she learned to convince herself that that was the case. But the reader can't help but sympathise with Iris for all that she lost and all that she's had to live with. There is not one scene in the whole entire book where actual, physical, real life Iris is happy.

Stunning.

Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret and Forever, by Judy Blume

Until yesterday I had never read a Judy Blume book. There. I said it. As a functioning human female, hella big reader and School Librarian this might appear as a bit of an oversight. Judy Blume is a living legend, and I've kind of picked up why, via osmosis but have never read anything myself.

As a child of the late 80s I was too not-yet-alive to be around for their contemporary publication and therefore controversy...what controversy remained in the 90s  I was mostly unaware of...but this got swept aside in favour of new moral panics polluting the childhood mind, like Hitman on the PS2, chatroom crazies and Mad Cow Disease. In short, they kind of passed me by.

So, in honour of Judy's appearance at YALC this weekend, I decided to give two of her more famous offerings a go.

Are You There God? It's Me Margaret.

Margaret Simon has just moved from New York to New Jersey with her Christian mother and Jewish father. Raised without religion (or left to choose her own later in life) Margaret fixates on this gap in her life and seems to attribute her general confusion on her lack of religious identity. When in fact it's quite normal to not really know who you are or what you feel about things when you are almost 12. Obviously Margaret, like us all, doesn't realise that at the time.

I can imagine why Blume is so popular- the reader really gets to examine Margaret's thoughts, fears and feelings and they will reflect the same thoughts, fears and feelings of a reader Margaret's age. Falling in with a group of girls, Margaret obsesses over the idea that she doesn't look, act or feel as grown up as the rest of them. It's a race to be the first to wear a bra, the first to have a period or kiss a boy. They write their extensive crushes in Boy Books, and the lists are always identical. She suppresses her opinions when they differ from the others'. Anxiety-producing stuff. She doesn't realise that everybody around her worries about the same things.

I really liked the inclusion of Laura Danker, a girl in Margaret's class whose much taller and more developed than her classmates. Margaret's friend Nancy makes up rumours about her (that everybody naturally assumes to be true) and the girls envy her adult appearance. Envy that comes out as meanness and spite. Realising her fear of difference and odd-one-out ness isn't a unique fear, Margaret learns through Laura that being the puberty trailblazer isn't actually as appealing as she's imagined, and that you shouldn't believe everything you hear. Important life lessons.

All in all, a really accessible and I can imagine anxiety relieving read about adolescent milestones, about starting to find out what sort of a person you are, and learning where you fit into the World. If it came out now, it would fit nicely in the Middle Grade Arena. It's very true to life and doesn't make its protagonist out to be some kind of hero or role model- she's normal in every way.  Though it is obviously of its time, it doesn't feel too dated. As it's pre-Internet and pre-mobile phones, their absolute absence feels less noticeable than old tech. It's weird- but having like a flip phone and MSN screen name seems to date narratives more than if tech is absent completely.

Forever

Where Are You There God? Deals with first bras and first periods, Forever deals with first love and first sexual experiences. One of the most challenged books of the last 50 years, many really don't appear to see the value of a frank and honest narrative of teen romance.

Katherine is on her final year of High School. At a NYE party she meets Michael- after a tentative first date, they start 'going together'. I had to smirk at the quaint antiquity of this- and how Katherine eye-rolls at her parents' use of 'going steady'. Bless. Anyway, they begin an intense relationship- intense in only the way that teen love can be. They talk on the phone every day, they pine for each other during the week and bathe in blissful togetherness at the weekends.

It's not a particularly turbulent or concerning relationship- it appears to be based on a mutual respect, trust and desire to please. They try to be honest with each other, and Katherine certainly knows her own mind and is no fool. When Michael makes it clear he wants their relationship to become physical, Katherine thinks thoroughly about what this means for her, whether or not she is mentally ready for such a step, and the relationship between love, sex, fun and responsibility. She's sensible. She establishes boundaries, considers things carefully and takes control of her own relationship. Katherine makes quite a good prototype really. The book's tone is such that it subtly applauds her mature decision making process, rather than the conclusion she reaches. Yes there are descriptions of the first time she has sex with Michael, but it's no more graphic than a textbook and probably more informative. Bodily fluids and biological reactions seem only to be offensive when in the context of fiction. That's a weird one.

Though some of its contraceptive advice might be best consigned to the 1970s, the attitudes are helpful and honest. If it was written now, I'd like to think it would talk more openly about consent, but as it stands there's no actual bones to pick with the portrayal of Michael and Katherine's first sexual experiences with each other. PSHE in the 21st century still has a long way to go, but I imagine that in the 70s this book provided more sex education than an entire year's worth of sponsored videos.

I liked that the book too sees a whole relationship through, from meeting, to 'going together', to intense 'love' first sexual experiences, to peetering out and moving on. It acknowledges the intense fervour of  teen relationships in a way which understands how important and all consuming they can be. But also points out that this is often short lived in a way which is not dismissive. Despite Katherine's earnest insistence that her and Michael are forever, she seems to accept with maturity and grace that her parents were right after all, that forever at 18 is kind of daft.

So in summary, I completely understand why Judy Blume is the Queen Regent of Teen. She completely paved the way for teen fiction's determination to deal with real life, relatable issues, to tackle subjects that impact and shape adolescent lives. These books aren't prescriptive, they don't pretend to be manuals for life but it makes readers realise, at the height of the teenage Armageddon of hormones and frenemies and depression and relationships that it's not completely uncharted terrain. Others have been there first and can help you through. Through the characters every reader gets to have an older sister or a cool aunt from whom can get the answers to their embarrassing questions. It's impossible to imagine what Young Adult fiction might look like today if books like these hadn't come first.

Ham on Rye, by Charles Bukowski

Perhaps the most famous of Bukowski's novels and often considered the most autobiographical, Ham on Rye tells the story of Henry Chinaski, a thinly veiled alter-ego of the author and his adolescent years growing up in depression era Los Angeles.

The narrative starts with anti-hero Henry's early years, seemingly endless driving around in his father's car for short visits with relatives that his father seems to have nothing but sneering contempt for. The reader learns early on that Henry Chinaski Snr is abusive and mildly unhinged, beating his son and his wife for sometimes no reason at all. I know it shouldn't be, but the scene where he manically demands Wembly-arena-quality grass mowing skills from his son is quite comical in its absurdity.We follow Henry Jnr's progression through his school life, where, attracted by the socially acceptable violence he tries to get into sports, then girls and then into hardcore alcoholism and regular everyday violence during his unremarkable adulthood.

Henry never fits in amongst his peers, partly due to his sarcastic and morose attitude, his unusually large build and lack of emotion, and eventually because of his horrific acne. In reality his alienation is due to the fact that Henry is odd, in a myriad of subtle ways that nobody can really identify successfully. He never played with the neighbourhood kids, he doesn't react when he's targeted for beatings, he's never bothered by his creepy loner status and is perturbed when other weird kids latch onto him for short periods. There's an increasingly bizarre collection of oddballs that come his way, then disappear as suddenly. He builds, eventually, a reputation for himself as a tough guy, immune to affection and kindness, feared by all. His alienation is only intensified when his status obsessed father makes him go to a private high school full of rich kids is flashy sportscars, convinced that if he gives the appearance of wealth, people will consider him rich and successful. High school finds Henry back at the bottom of the pile, anonymous and stripped of his tough guy reputation.

In many ways it's a classic coming of age novel- adolescence is seen as ridiculous and adulthood pure insanity. Henry's father fakes a job for years and his mother barely breathes for fear of upsetting her husband. Adulthood looks intensely unappealing to Henry. There's plenty of truly cringeworthy episodes where, as you're reading, you hope that it isn't one of the autobiographical incidents...then the next one is that bit worse, then the next properly alarming, so you can deduce that at least one of them surely must have happened...and then that goes some way to understanding Bukowski as a person. There are events too where we come closer to understanding Henry as a character- we learn that despite his love of (and talent) for violence, he abhors cruelty to animals. Perhaps his one redeeming quality in a narrative where he comes across as somebody one would make effort to avoid.

Though he's a character the reader feels gradually diminishing sympathy for, he is definitely an authentic misanthrope. Less posturing than Holden Cauldfield, as phoney as the world he despises, less philosophical (and less obviously disturbed) than Meursault, less active than Johnny Strabler...he's invisible and utterly devoid of impact and it's thoroughly through choice. I suppose he's characterised mostly by lack- a lack of ambition, which infuriates his father, a lack of faith in himself or his country, a lack of application in anything that comes across his path. Though Henry is far from a likeable character, you have to admire his consistency and his truthfulness, and you can't deny he's compelling.

It's not exactly an enjoyable read, but the narrative style is absolutely gripping and the grim, relentless drudge of a life of isolation and despondency is gritty and dynamic, the prose fierce. It's such a compelling book with a memorable and intense anti-hero that trumps them all when it comes to authenticity. It's hard to tell if he's unhappy or not- it's hard to believe that he feels anything. Henry doesn't merely demand the reader's attention, he consumes it.

Nobody Saw No One, by Steve Tasane

I was at YALC when somebody asked Patrick Ness if he thought there would ever be a kid's book written about Operation Yewtree- the institutionalised child sexual abuse investigation launched by the Met in 2012 that has dredged up handful after handful of disgraced past and present personalities from every sector of public life. Patrick's reply was "Good luck pitching that to your publisher". He obviously didn't mean 'that book shouldn't happen' or 'nobody would read that' or 'that would be a terrible book' but, rightly, he was unsure of if a publisher would feel comfortable unleashing such a potentially disturbing book onto the young reading public. Or if any of the young people that it was unleashed upon would read it. Never one to shy away from tackling difficult subjects head on, I'm sure he's thrilled to have been proven incorrect on this one. Steve Tasane has written that book, it has been published by Walker Books, and it is, most importantly, really, really good.

Nobody Saw No One is a modern retelling of Oliver Twist, replacing the workhouse with a negligent and corrupt care home, Fagin's den with a dodgy branch of Cash Converters and though the 'family' of broken boys are prone to the odd picked pocket or five fingered discount, they specialise primarily in internet scams and identity theft. Bill Skyes becomes the psychopathic Jackson Banks and his killer dog 'Obnob and Nancy is updated to Grace- a motherly and caring young woman that suffers abuse and misuse by JB.

The story is told through the eyes of two narrators, both runaways from Tenderness House Secure Care Home, a place that is anything bust secure and where bad things happen. Streetwise and cocky, Citizen Digit is a master thief and skilled in the art of disappearance. He has a shall we say unique dialect- think if Russell Brand wrote Urban Dictionary and lobbed in an extra helping of Spoonerisms. After spotting moon-eyed, baby faced Alfi Spar on the streets of London and recognising him from Tenderness, Digit takes him back to Cash Converters to join the gang of thieves, assuming his angelic looks would be useful for Virus, their unofficial guardian and manager. Alfi Spar is so named because he was found in a shop doorway as a baby and has been in care ever since. Unlucky, but honest and turfed from Foster to Foster through no fault of his own- Digit's life of crime is a shocking revelation to him.

I really liked the relationship depicted between the two lads- some of their story overlaps, so we get to hear both boys' thoughts on the same events. Digit feels a mixture of sympathy and frustration for Alfi- he's so pathetic he wants to help him, but knows deep down that it's risking everything he *is* in order to do it. Digit's anonymity is his superpower and Alfi knows his real name, knew him pre-persona when he was a care home inmate just like any of the others. Similarly, Alfi admires and respects Digit, but he doesn't trust him at all. He questions Digit's loyalty constantly, unsure if he will flake on his responsibilities, on exposing their abusers, on him.

Though sexual abuse is central to the story, there are no observed, explicit scenes- the characters are too traumatised to talk about it, even amongst themselves, resorting instead to codes; 'Jim'llfixits' and their 'Jimmy Parties' they call the perpetrators and the nights that they visit. The reader sees the extent to which the authorities ignore the problem- either because its in their interests to turn the other cheek, or simply because they don't believe the allegations. The kids in this book are proven liars, thieves and criminally delinquent- who would believe their accusations levelled at such pillars of the community? The book makes it clear, obviously, that these evil 'Jim'llfixits' are abhorrent in every way, but it also levels blame at those that see these things and know what's happening but do nothing about it.

This book really highlights the plight of those individuals that fall through the gaps of society. The invisible care leavers that walk out of the system at the age of 16 and the state considers them mature, secure and capable enough to fend for themselves in the outside world, whatever they've been through. It shows how easy it is to discredit the opinions, concerns or problems of people that have no voice, no back up from friends or family- it shows how easy it is for care leavers to become lost and sink. Care and crime isn't a foregone conclusion, but 23% of the adult prison population has been in care and nearly 40% of prisoners under 21 were in the care system as kids 1. How does this still happen?

Ultimately, this is a book about bravery and strength and about standing up for right and good against the odds. It's also about the emotional security that a home and a family provides, and the strength that that fortifies a person with. I loved the brotherhood that developed between Alfi and Digit, and Grace, to a certain extent- another let down care leaver that's been through everything that they have and more, just a few years earlier.

All in all, it's a riveting book that casts light on a set of very topical issues, some of which are issues that people are often reluctant to talk about. It handles the horrific abuse suffered at Tenderness sensitively and skilfully, and the reader can't help but root desperately for Alfi and Digit as they attempt to make their voices heard. It's pacey, frequently very funny and though the uber-urban dialect gets a bit distracting in places where you try to work out what the hell Digit is on about, it's genuinely gripping.

1 SourceThe Who Cares Trust

The Strange and Beautiful Sorrows of Ava Lavender, by Leslye Walton

Leslye Walton's début novel The Strange and Beautiful Sorrows of Ava Lavender is first and foremost a family saga, the winding and tragic story of four generations of the Lavender family. We start with narrator Ava's great-grandparents, Beauregard Roux and "Maman" who emigrate from France to a squalid "Manhatine" tenement in the early twentieth century. After a hefty bout of tragedy, Rouxs' daughter Emilienne (Ava's grandmother) marries a deformed baker in heartbroken haste and moves to Seattle. There, she settles into a blue-painted house with an infamous, if slightly mythical history, becomes a witch in the eyes of the neighbours and takes over her newly-deceased husband's bakery (and makes it better than ever). Emilienne is haunted by her dead siblings and believes her heart to be broken beyond repair. She gives birth to a daughter, Viviane, Ava's mother. Viviane's life is no less tragic, filled with unrequited love, betrayal and single-parenthood, wasted potential and isolation. She has twins, Harry and Ava, and none of them leave the house for years.

We dip in and out of the three women's lives, living together in the blue house. We find out more about the emotional wounds that they've suffered for love, but it’s Ava who is at the heart of this story- she narrates, though doesn't appear herself until about half way in. She’s a normal girl, but born with wings sprouting from her shoulder blades. Whether this makes her an angel, bird or girl, nobody seems to be sure. What it does make her is different, so Viviane hides her away. She hides herself away too, out of the way of the man that loved her but spurned her for a more socially acceptable bride.

The novel explores love in all its countless and destructive forms: unrequited, lost, forsaken, brutal, selfish, abusive, desperate. If there's one thing the Lavender family have learned it's that "Love makes us such fools". But there's hope there too; familial love, passion, unwavering love and love that is thoroughly trampled on but refuses to die. Even if sometimes it would be better off doing so.

Quite an epic and mythology-filled narrative, the book is full of the passage of time, the nature of mortality, drama and woe, odd encounters and quirky characters. There's a sort of fatalistic streak to it too- the idea that lives are preordained and will unravel as intended, regardless of a person's intent or decisions. It certainly seems that the Lavender family are doomed to repeat the same mistake- being rejected by men that they are too quick to commit themselves to, men that don't appreciate them. Ava, thankfully seems able to have broken the cycle, but at a horrific and brutal cost.

It's beautifully written prose, lyrical and filled with sensory description and beautiful, mystical imagery. An absolute joy to read, despite some pretty horrific scenes that jar with the coming-of-age narrative of the rest of the book. But people do so like to destroy the things they love. Ava really is a compelling little narrator; headstrong, brave and never defeated. Her voice is strong and clear, she accepts her fate without submitting to it in a way that's characteristically stoic, but she's incredibly warm and funny in places too. A very memorable character.

A Complicated Kindness, by Miriam Toews

A Complicated Kindness is a coming-of-age story set in a Canadian Mennonite community, a reclusive and devout Christian sect that's similar in its ways to the more familiar Amish, much to the fascination of the visiting tourists. Mennonites reject the modern world and all its temptations, instead living like 18th century farmers. But with TVs. Sometimes. The town's main industry is the chicken slaughter place and the town's youth look forward to illustrious careers slaughtering chickens before being called up to Heaven in the rapture.

The novel is narrated by 16 year old Nomi in a wry, deadpan style that's very endearing and often funny, in a bittersweet kind of way. She definitely has a sharp sense of the comedic tragedy of her life- musing on the bemused-looking mural of Jesus on the high street, why did their religious founder Menno Simons name his following after his first name? Why does he love damnation so much but isn't bothered about explanation? How is moving one's body to music a sin? Nomi's mother and sister have both left the family, separately and suddenly- but probably for the same reasons. Nomi recalls them in chunks, their reasons for their departures become more and more clear, and sadly inevitable as she offers her memories up to the reader. Her missing family haunt her, but Nomi's father is unable to give up the religion that he loves and that has formed him and Nomi finds herself unable to give up on her father. She is trying her hardest to hold everything together in a ramshackle house by the highway that is falling apart, and with a father with increasingly erratic behaviour. Though previously a devout believer and follower of her religion, Nomi is just beginning to question the lifestyle she has been brought up in in a traditional rebellious angsty teen style.

She and her band of disillusioned teen exiles spend their weekends dressing up as pioneers and churning butter in the mocked-up 'Ye Olden Times' dioramas for tourists, then drive around in pickup trucks, smoking dope, listening to Lou Reed and reading hipster novels and beat poetry. In many ways she's very much an  ordinary teenager- boys, music her parents disapprove of, barely noticeable acts of rebellion. Nomi declares her survival strategy to be using “drugs and my imagination”- her greatest weapons against a town and a religion so desperate to get a foot in the door of Heaven that they forget completely to live. 

I really liked Nomi as a character- she was kidding herself about ever leaving, and she knew that but she lied to herself anyway was a way to cope. She's smart, honest and naturally inquiring, all the things that hardcore religious communities seek to crush, and it's painful to watch her struggle to understand that and then to force herself to live with it. I loved the pitiful but loving relationship she had with her father too, the bond and the burden. They didn't speak much, but understood one another entirely, even if the motives and attitudes were completely different. The scene where she helps him clean up the rubbish at the dump is heartbreaking- this religion seems to have crushed them both.

Though it's not a particularly plot heavy book, it's a fascinating character study of Nomi and her religion, which will be pretty alien to UK readers. It's beautifully written with a mastery of language and image that I haven't seen in a long time. As it's not driven by action, the characters and their lives have to be compelling, as Nomi was a truly arresting narrator. It's a fast and engrossing read all about self-discovery and betrayal, family and escape.

Cuckoo Song, by Frances Hardinge

A hugely atmospheric and creepy story that it's difficult to talk about without giving away the reveal. Thought the reveal happens quite early on, it's a chilling moment of realisation that the reader has to experience for themselves. So I'll do my best to give a flavour without giving too much away.

Sickly and over-coddled child Triss wakes up after having an accident on holiday. She has fallen in a lake, but can't remember anything about the accident at all. As soon as she is awake, she knows that something is wrong, but not wanting to worry her family, she focuses desperately on getting better. She is insatiably, impossibly hungry and keeps waking up with leaves in her hair and crumbs of mud on her feet. Her troublesome younger sister, Pen is terrified of her and insists, loudly and constantly that Triss is pretending to be ill. To no avail- she is ignored and rebuked by her family, dismissed as attention-seeking and spiteful. Most worrying of all, Triss' tears seem to be cobwebs and the leaves and soil seem to be coming from her.

I loved the relationship between (not) Triss and Pen. To begin with, she can barely look at her 'older sister', so strong is the hatred and fear- hatred incase this person is her sister, fear in case it is not. As circumstances force them together, they get to know each other, they begin to trust until they become inseparable. Pen can't reconcile the kindness and bravery of this Triss with the pre-accident Triss, a sister that she remembers being bitter, filled with malice and spite. The reader really doesn't get to know pre-accident Triss very well at all, but they become very fond of the new Triss, the girl who came out of the lake and the way she is now. She's brave and noble and after a few blips and wobbles, she would do anything to protect her family, anything to shield them from pain or grief, whatever the personal cost.

It's a dark and chilling fairytale, full of horrible villains and dastardly plans. There's an ever-present sense of foreboding and an understanding that anything could happen.  The author creates this briefly glimpsed but effective in-between world, filled with ghostly, shape-shifting trickster spirits, nestled invisibly in the impossible dimensions of modern architecture. It contrasts starkly with the crumbling social fabric of the post World War I era, the shifting of the Old Ways into the modern era. I loved the misty, depressed real world with the shadow of the fantastic lingering over it. Very Neil Gaiman indeed.

Hardinge has a slight tendency to over-write in this book, there's the occasional metaphor that slips its hold and becomes a bit uncontrollable, but it sort of works with the creepy, fantastical nightmare elements. The melodrama suits Triss during her most traumatic or dramatic moments. Overall I was impressed with the author's sense for causing subtle discomfort through everyday things; dolls, snow, food. The everyday becomes tainted with weird, and that's very effective all the way through.

Ultimately I suppose it's a story about identity and families. The Triss that this narrative follows struggles to come to terms with her identity, or rather her lack of identity. Triss' parents struggle to accept that their daughter is growing up and becoming capable of choosing for herself. In many ways its a coming of age story about a character that only realises what kind of a person they are when they are tempted, tested to the limits and when they seem to have nothing left to lose. Well worth a read, a very unique novel whose Carnegie chances I quite fancy.

Rules of Summer, by Shaun Tan

I think I've made it pretty clear that I'm a massive fan of The Tan. A Tan Fan, if you will. His newest publication is, as one would expect, brilliant. It's thought provoking and nostalgic for the adults, fun and joyous and full of colour and adventure for the young readers. It's about family and imagination the wonder of childhood.

Each double spread has only one line of text- a thing learned over the summer, a little piece of wisdom from child to reader. Never do this. Never do that, says the voice of childish experience. It's accompanied by a fantastic, sometimes terrifying and sometimes wondrous illustration as evidence of why you should act on this advice.

I love everything that goes into these images and how much there is to be understood and deciphered in them. The whole world of a child can be seen in these drawings if you look hard enough. There's the fearful thrill of the unfathomable adult world, the endlessness of summer days, the promise of adventure and creation, the boundless imagination of childhood and the longing for acceptance and understanding. Illustrations that seem confusing and fantastical, surreal even in places begin to sort themselves out into sense and understanding. The reader has to work it out for themselves and once they begin to unravel they are incredible.

I loved the style of the artwork in Rules of Summer, and each page is a little, weird work of art. The thick, expressionist brushstrokes where the paint has been slathered on look real enough to touch. Every page is a mystery until it's studied. The palette of the pages varies, changing the mood of the book frequently. There's a few pages of desolate black, white and grey when are heroes look doomed, bursts of colour when the imaginary reaches its peak. I loved the contrast too- the gloom and boredom of the everyday, the understood, compared with paradise, the spectrum of the mysterious unknown. The fear of being on the outside looking in must be familiar to every person, ever, at some point in a person's life. This is such an accurate depiction of that feeling. I don't even have words for it. You don't need words when you have pictures.

The best rendering of "Being on the outside looking in" that I have ever known.
Tan, S. (2013) Rules of Summer Sydney: Hachette 

At the heart of the story, because there is most definitely a story even if there aren't many words, is about two brothers and their summer of imagination. Just a glance at the art shows how much the younger brother looks up to and reveres his older, wiser brother. The older boy shows his little brother how to do things, he makes up unreasonable rules for him (because he can), he looks after him and keeps him safe. They learn things together, things they have worked out by themselves.

Never eat the last olive at a party
Tan, S. (2013) Rules of Summer Sydney: Hachette  

It's a book thats scope and depth and meaning is as limitless as the reader's imagination and experience. I loved it. As far as I'm concerned, this wins. This wins all day long. Shaun Tan wins everything ever.