'Saving Daisy' by Phil Earle, reviewed by Rosalie Warren

Please note that this is a teen/YA novel and contains material that may be unsuitable for younger readers.

 

Earlier this year, I reviewed Phil Earle's Being Billy on this site, and promised to return with his second YA novel, Saving Daisy, which is loosely linked to the first. So here is my review of Saving Daisy, which I have to say I enjoyed even more than Being Billy.

Both of these are hard-hitting YA novels, featuring young people with painfully difficult lives. As I said in my first review, it took me a while to 'get' Billy - probably no fault of the author but simply that Billy's background is a world away from my own. But Daisy was a different matter. I connected with her from the first few paragraphs - partly, perhaps, because of already having met her in Being Billy, but mainly because our personalities just clicked. Fourteen-year-old Dasiy has a problem - well, she has many problems, but right at the centre is a seething mass of poisonous guilt. Daisy blames herself for the death of her mother and has, she believes, the evidence to prove it.

Dad, although well-meaning, gives little help. He misses his wife so much he can't bear to speak of her. When Daisy asks him to look in the loft for photos of her mum, he refuses. Daisy has no other relatives and no chance to share her fears with anyone else.

At school, Daisy keeps her head down, for fear of being noticed and bullied. She's a bright girl who successfully hides her intelligence much of the time. But someone notices her and it seems, at first, that he can help. Daisy confides some of her fears and makes a friend. But then, in a frightening twist, everything is turned on its head and she's in a worse mess than ever, with even more guilt (she believes) to shoulder.

Daisy's slow and painful emergence from this state constitues the rest of the book. I don't want to give away too much, except to say that Phil Earle's experience of working with troubled and abused young people shines through every page. As far as I can tell, he is psychologically spot on, and the story of Daisy's recovery is a realistic one, though filled with so many twists and turns that it's impossible to second-guess. What I especially like is the emphasis on the hard work that Dasiy has to put in herself. Her recovery is all her own - no magic and no saviours here, except a dedicated care worker with the patience, resilience and understanding to take any amount of abuse from Daisy and let her work through things at her own pace.

Some young readers may find the book shocking in parts, though there is nothing in it that I would not want a child of mine to read, at least from the age of 12. The hope and compassion in this story is inspirational; while the darkness in Daisy's life may make you cry (it did me).

If only every needy young person could have an 'Ade' (read the book to understand what this means).

The writing is smooth and confident; the teenage voices convincing. But this is a book for adults, too, as Daisy's troubles will resonate, I believe, across every age and background.

I'm now waiting for book three. Come on, Phil Earle, let's see what you have in store for us next.

Title: Saving Daisy
Author: Phil Earle
Publication Date: 5th Jan 2012
Publisher: Puffin
ISBN-10: 0141331364
ISBN-13: 978-0141331362

Happy Reading!
Ros

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'Being Billy' by Phil Earle - reviewed by Rosalie Warren

Billy is a lifer - not in prison but in a care home. He has just turned fifteen and he's angry - oh boy, is he angry. His fury blazes out from every page.

Billy is not easy to like, or not at first, anyway. Not if you are a middle-aged woman like me, brought up in the 1960s in a family who gave you all the love and security you ever needed. After the first few pages, I wondered whether Billy and I were going to get on.

But slowly, Phil Earle led me into Billy's world and I started to get glimpses of why Billy is the way he is. Nine years of institutional living, for a start. An attempt at being fostered by a family with an eye to adopting him, which all went disastrously wrong. Before that, an alcoholic mother with a partner who physically abused Billy. This young man has many reasons for being the way he is.

Billy's redeeming feature is that he loves his younger brother and sister, the ten-year-old twins, Louie and Lizzie. He will do anything to protect them and keep them from harm. He'll beat up anyone who tries to hurt them. He stands guard outside the bathroom-without-a-lock while Lizzie is inside, reads them bedtime stories and tucks their duvets round their feet at night to keep them warm.

Care home worker Ronnie is on Billy's side or wants to be, if only Billy would let him. Ronnie goes to great lengths to help Billy sort out his life, but Billy's having none of it. It's not till he meets Daisy, a girl from a similar background to his own, that he begins to thaw out, just a little bit.

There's talk of the twins moving back home to live with their mother, leaving Billy behind in the care home. He hates this idea, both for their sake and his own, though with Daisy and Ron's help he finally starts to come to terms with it. But that's only the beginning of further trouble. Billy will have to dig deep to find what he needs to help his brother and sister now.

Books don't often make me cry these days, but my eyes were wet at a couple of points in the reading of this one. Phil Earle knows what he's talking about. The introduction says he worked in a children's home and moved on to train as a drama therapist and worked in a community in London caring for traumatized adoloscents. All that experience shines through the novel. And Phil understands Ronnie as well as Billy, that's very clear.

Young readers may well identify more quickly with Billy than I did. When I finally 'got' him, I was ashamed it had taken me so long. From the outside, I would have dismissed him, for sure, as yet another troublesome and violent young lad. I'm sorry, Billy. I understand you a bit better now and I see how I could easily have been you or Daisy if I'd experienced the kind of things you did.

Well done, Phil Earle. I see you have a new book out, called Saving Daisy. I hope it's the troubled Daisy, Billy's friend from the first book. I'll be reading it very soon, anyway, and I'll be recommending Billy to everyone who crosses my path.

Title: Being Billy
Author: Phil Earle
Publisher: Puffin (6 Jan 2011)
ISBN-10: 0141331356
ISBN-13: 978-0141331355



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