The Places I've Cried in Public by Holly Bourne, reviewed by Dawn Finch

First the blurb...

Amelie loved Reese. And she thought he loved her. But she’s starting to realise love isn’t supposed to hurt like this. So now she’s retracing their story and untangling what happened by revisiting all the places he made her cry. Because if she works out what went wrong, perhaps she can finally learn to get over him.

Note - Trigger warnings in this book for abusive relationships and mental health issues

Amelie thought she was in love. Well, it certainly seemed like love and she imagined a future that was all about Reese and their life together, but what did she mean to him? She genuinely thought he loved her right back but is real love meant to hurt this badly? Does real love have so many tears, and so many places marked by crying? Amelie retraces the steps of her relationship with Reese to try to understand how she ended up here, and in doing so sees things with clarity for the first time.

As an adult reader, this book is full of all the terrible warning signs of an abusive relationship, but seeing this is perhaps something that comes to us with age. Amelie doesn't know what Reese is doing to her and doesn't have the tools to see the warning signs. Like many girls (and women) her love blinds her to the obvious. It's only when she gets help, therapy, and distance from the abusive relationship that she can begin to see the harm that has been done to her.

This is an incredibly powerful book about the subtle slide from devotion to obsession and from adoration to abuse. It is at times a traumatic read, but also one of gentle humour, sensitivity and caring. It's not a book that preaches, despite it delivering some very powerful life lessons. I wanted to be able to rescue Amelie. I wanted to sweep her away from her situation, and hug her, and give her a good talking to, and keep her safe. I think we have all had friends that we want to rescue, and have at times, maybe, needed rescuing ourselves. My hope is that if all young women have access to books like this, maybe they’ll be better placed to rescue themselves and others.

The Places I've Cried in Public by Holly Bourne is published by Usborne Books.

Reviewed by Dawn Finch, author and librarian.
@dawnafinch
www.dawnfinch.com

Usborne have a link to some resources that might be useful if referring to this book in a school setting.
https://usborne.com/browse-books/catalogue/product/1/14585/the-places-ive-cried-in-public/

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Mud by Emily Thomas - Reviewed by Kelly McCaughrain

I loved this debut novel for teens by Emily Thomas. I think you rarely see such complex issues dealt with in children’s books in such a believable way and with such wisdom.

Lydia’s mother is dead and her unreliable father has just lost their house and is moving their family of five plus his new girlfriend plus her three kids plus the cat to live on a houseboat called the Lady Beatrice. (This is my idea of hell btw. Not the boat, the sharing it with eight other people).

Amazing as that plot sounds, the more extraordinary thing is that it’s based on Emily Thomas’s own childhood when she did indeed live on a barge with a very large stepfamily. The book begins in 1979 and if you remember the 80s there’s a lot of throwback fun to be had.

I don’t know how much of the story is strictly autobiographical, but I’d believe you if you told me it all really happened because it felt like Thomas knows what she’s talking about. The book deals with big emotional stuff – living with an alcoholic, the powerlessness of childhood, loss of a parent – that would be hard to write about if you hadn’t experienced it, but I completely believed in the characters.

I became hooked as things just got progressively worse and worse for the family, and right up until the end I was wondering how on earth they were going to turn things around. Or if they would turn it around. Usually with children’s books you can pretty much expect a happy ending but this felt so real I wasn’t sure how it was going to go, and the ending did feel true to that sense of life being more complicated than fiction.

We’re told when we write we have to have a character who wants something and they have to go out there and actively make it happen (with carefully placed dramatic moments along the way) and all that’s great, but it’s not real life at all. In real life children are often completely lost and powerless, washed about with the parental tides and it takes all their effort just to stay emotionally afloat, never mind make things happen. And yet for all her powerlessness, Lydia isn’t a weak character. She comes to realise she’s emotionally much stronger and more resilient than she knew, and that maybe the bravest thing she can do is realise that she can’t fix her family, they have to do it themselves.

Despite all this disaster, the book is also warm and funny and a thoroughly enjoyable read. I highly recommend it!

Kelly McCaughrain is the author of the YA novel Flying Tips for Flightless Birds. 

She blogs about Writing, Gardening and VW Campervanning at weewideworld.blogspot.co.uk 

@KMcCaughrain

 

 

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Unstoppable by Dan Freedman, reviewed by Dawn Finch

First the blurb...
Secrets and lies . . . secrets and lies . . . Fourteen-year-old twins, Kaine and Roxy, used to be close, but now they can hardly bear to be in the same room. Roxy hates the way her brother behaves - Kaine might be brilliant at football but he's always in trouble and cares nothing about his family. And Kaine despises the way his supposedly-perfect sister, dominates their parents in her ambition to reach Wimbledon. But the twins are both hiding dangerous secrets of their own, secrets that could destroy everything they are working towards - and both Roxy and Kaine's survival hangs precariously in the balance. 

Readers are probably most familiar with Dan Freedman's football books for kids. His series of novels for younger readers featuring his character, Jamie Johnson, have gripped tens of thousands of kids. As Freedman's background is in football (he was a football writer and even the FA's editor) he established himself in the world of children's books with a genuinely exciting set of stories based around the game. Unstoppable is slight swerve-ball from his established playing field, but one that he definitely scores with.

Freedman is an inspiring speaker in schools and had a huge impact on the kids in my school when he came to visit. He has a very natural rapport with young people, and this understanding shows in Unstoppable. Possibly in no small part due to the fact that this new book has been inspired by things Freedman has heard or been told by pupils in the schools he has visited.

Football is the lace that threads this novel together (and tennis strings things along too), but the action really hinges on the main players, their relationships with their families, and the sports that they feel define them. Kaine and Roxy are instantly relatable and the way they talk and act does feel very real. The interplay of sibling rivalry never feels as if Freedman has casually gender-flipped the situation. Kaine and Roxy are both very strong characters. The twins feel very different from each other, but ultimately it is their likenesses that both build and resolve the story.

This is a very strong book and one that is a blast of the voice of youth. It deals with issues such as gang culture, youth stress and depression, unemployment, parental pressure, sibling rivalry and the kind of family crises that most will recognise. Unstoppable deals with them with refreshing honesty and never feels preachy. I hope this book will get the attention it deserves. 

Unstoppable by Dan Freedman is published by David Fickling Books
ISBN - 9781788450492 


Dawn Finch is a children's author and librarian.
www.dawnfinch.com
@dawnafinch

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Long Way Down by Jason Reynolds, illustrated by Chris Priestley - review by Dawn Finch

First the blurb...

AND THEN THERE WERE SHOTS
Everybody
ran,
ducked, 
hid, tucked
themselves tight.

Pressed our lips to the
pavement and prayed
the boom, followed by 
the buzz of a bullet,
didn't meet us.

After Will's brother is shot in a gang crime, he knows the next steps. Don't cry. Don't snitch. Get revenge. So he gets in the lift with Shawn's gun, determined to follow The Rules. Only when the lift door opens, Buck walks in, Will's friend who died years ago. And Dani, who was shot years before that. As more people from his past arrive, Will has to ask himself if he really knows what he's doing.

I read a lot of books - hundreds of them every year, but it's not often that a book leaves me speechless. I read Long Way Down shortly after it was published in January, and it has taken me this long to review it because it was hard to find the words. In that time I've been sharing it with everyone I meet and telling them that if they only buy one book this year, it should be this one.

There have been a few verse books hit the shelves over the last few years, and some of them have been excellent, some have not. It is not only a difficult format to master, but it is also incredibly difficult to sell and to get young readers to take a chance on. So many readers feel that poetry is not for them, and feel excluded by the format. Long Way Down is the book to challenge that.

Reynolds' free and fluid verse is engaging and captures the reader from the opening lines. He writes with a living ease that feels real, and honest. This is the voice of youth, and anger, and it speaks directly to the reader. This is not the sound of pretentiousness or of fusty academia, this is the voice of fear, and hate, and sadness and grief. Will is real and in this verse we know him, and we understand him, and through this we understand the plight and situation of the young people who walk in his shoes.

Detail - art by Chris Priestley

The book is a powerful package with the verse supported by Chris Priestley's characteristically superb illustrations. Darkness oozes from scratchy images of Will's life. Frozen moments of memories, wisps of the past and the horrors of the present. Inky flashes of bullets, guns, body bags and fragments of the life of a boy who has been swept away into this terrible world.

This is not only a great book and a great read, it is also one of those very rare things - it is an important book.

Long Way Down is written by Jason Reynolds and illustrated by Chris Priestley
Published by Faber and Faber
ISBN - 978 0571335121

Reviewed by Dawn Finch, author and librarian.
www.dawnfinch.com
@dawnafinch

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Girl Out Of Water by Nat Luurtsema, Reviewed by Kelly McCaughrain

This is a light-hearted comedy and a fun read. The author is also a professional comedian and that really comes across in the writing, which is packed full of jokes.

Lou Brown is a likeable, hare-brained narrator who has just failed to qualify for a fancy swimming school for Olympic hopefuls. Her best friend did qualify and has left Lou behind. With her life’s ambition thwarted, she’s devastated, friendless and at a loose end, until presented with a very bizarre request from some popular boys in her school to coach them for a talent show.

I liked the unusual family set up in this book (the parents are divorced but live together because the dad is unemployed) and the minor characters were entertaining, and I enjoyed the relationship Lou had with her older sister. Lou’s voice is very contemporary, it felt like reading the Twitter feeds of teenage girls, but in a good way, and there were lots of contemporary references to things like Britain’s Got Talent etc.

There are some serious issues in the book, including pushy parents, dealing with stress and eating disorders, but they happen mostly offstage and are presented with humour so it never gets heavy. I particularly liked that it showed what happens when your dreams don’t come true, how failure isn’t the end, and how new dreams can come along.

I think younger teens would really enjoy this, but the 16 year olds in my teen writing group also found it a fun read.

Kelly McCaughrain is the author of the YA novel Flying Tips for Flightless Birds. 

She blogs about Writing, Gardening and VW Campervanning at weewideworld.blogspot.co.uk 

@KMcCaughrain 

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