reviews 14+Secondary/Adult continued Holding Up the Universe HHHH


Jennifer Niven, Penguin Books, 387pp, 978-0-1413-5705-8, £7.99 pbk


‘I’m not a shitty person, but I’m about to do a shitty thing. And you will hate me, and some other people will hate me, but I’m going to do it anyway to protect you and also myself.’ The voice in this novel’s opening lines is hard to ignore – and readers probably think they already know the kind of story which will follow. But the next sentence comes as a surprise: ‘This will sound like an excuse, but I have something called prosopagnosia.’ I didn’t know either, so the explanation was essential: ‘I can’t


faces, not even the faces of the people I love. Not even my mom. Not even myself.’ YA readers know about ‘sicklit’


sympathy, but Jennifer Niven takes things to a new level. We join Jack Masselin as he heads off each day to Martin Van Buren High School in Amos, Indiana, knowing he won’t recognise anyone visually. There’ll be kids who think he’s their friend, others who can’t stand him, others who don’t know him at all. In particular, there’s Caroline Lushamp, Captain of the High School Damsels, the finest drill team in the State. He’s dated her ‘in an off- again, on-again way’ for four years; yet he recognises her only through ‘identifiers’ - her voice, hair, smell, clothes. When, despite his coping strategies, he mistakes her cousin for Caroline herself, the cataclysmic fall-out is inevitable. Because


is uncertain at this point about his condition – his diagnosis comes later – he’s not talking to anyone about it. Not even his family. He’s not the only one at MVB High


he enlist interest and recognise


and the use authors make of acute ailments to


easily have become anything from sentimental


but instead we learn how they come to see each other, as they have never seen anyone before. Niven maintains the narrow focus upon the two of them with intensity and yet the kind of quick-slick humour we expect in the best High School sagas; crucially, she makes both


engaging characters so that we too see beyond the obesity and the face- blindness to more essential qualities. Together, they navigate those


important High School parties, the crass classmates, the face-offs in the Cafeteria, as they find friends whose own warmth and complexity surprise them.


and wit and vulnerabilities in each other and in doing so they realise they’ve found what they’ve craved – normality. Of the two, Libby is the stronger, the more self-aware, the braver; despite inevitable setbacks and misunderstandings as love grows between them, she’s able to sustain Jack on what becomes their journey, rather than two


quests. GF Alpha


lonely individual HHHHH


Bessora and Barroux, trans. Sarah Ardizzone, The Bucket List, 128pp, 978-1-9113-7000-0, hbk, £16.99


This unforgettable between


Bessora and award winning graphic artist Barroux follows the harrowing journey of Alpha, a cabinet maker from Cote d’Ivoire, who wants to join his sister-in-law in Paris. His wife and son have already left for France but he has not heard from them. Refused a visa, he has no choice but to pay traffickers. And so begins a heart breaking trek


who has an issue. When she was 11, Libby Strout’s mum died. She began to eat. And eat. She became so obese – she made headlines as ‘America’s Fattest Teen’ – that she had to be cut out of her home by the emergency services (Google reveals such cases). That home, as it happens, was just across the street from Jack’s house; he saw it all happen, and felt nothing but empathy for Libby – one ‘freak’ for another. Unlike those who bombarded her and her loyal father with poisonous emails (check out Google


Now, supported by her indispensable therapist, as well as her consistently loving dad, she’s lost 302 of the 653 pounds she once weighed and is as ready as she can be to face School again. Inside, she’s a dancer, a swift and agile mover; so much so that her goal is to become a member of the Damsels. Libby and Jack


interweaving stories in alternating short chapters. Such a tale could so


tell us their again).


continent, always on the edge of survival, at risk from both traffickers and border guards, turning this way and that, aiming to reach a place on the North African coast from which he can reach Europe. Sometimes he takes temporary work to get more money to pay the traffickers or buy a vehicle for the next stage. He spends time corralled in makeshift camps where each migrant nationality has its own ghetto. Along the way he makes


across the African


who takes to prostitution, contracts Aids and dies in childbirth; the boy Augustin, who disappears one night in a transit camp; and Antoine whose dream of playing for Barcelona will never be realised. Alpha tells his own story as if he is updating us from day to day. His matter-of-fact manner heightens our sense of the appalling threats and dangers that he and his companions face and we might not endure. He begins resolutely


upbeat, referring and loses friends: Adebi, award winning novelist collaboration They discover all- seriousness


to his journey as an adventure, and throughout he is resourceful, mending broken-down vehicles and, when they finally pack up, stripping them for parts that can be sold. Everywhere, he shows the photo of his wife and son, ever hopeful that someone will recognise them. But, gradually, you feel that all that has happened to him has drained his spirit. And, drifting towards the Canaries on the last leg of the journey, he feels ‘Life is weary of what you’ve inflicted on it, and it wants to abandon you. Life has had enough of you, enough of the water, enough of the sun, enough of the boat.’ In an afterword, we learn that Alpha does reach France and finds his sister-in-law but not his wife and son. Wandering homeless around Paris, he is then deported back to Africa. In a fine translation by Sarah


them from ‘genuine’ refugees; as if that somehow made them less deserving or their experience less harrowing. Bessora’s text combines both the immediacy of documentary and the


empathetic force of fiction. Barroux’ s illustrations are mainly in black felt tip and wash, using colour very sparingly, but sometimes tellingly, as in the bright clothes of the tourists in Africa or the bloodied face of a beaten migrant. It captures the vulnerability, fear and possible degradation of a journey in the shadows but also the hope of a better life that keeps the migrants struggling on. Alpha is published in the UK by a new imprint supported by Amnesty International and other partners. A winner of the English Pen Award and the Prix Medecins Sans Frontieres in France, it is absolutely unmissable. CB


The Deviants HHHH


C J Skuse, Mira Ink, 314pp, 978-1- 8484-5526-9, £7.99 pbk


There are five young people, namely Estella known as Ella, Corey who has


emotional insight and migrants to distinguish of them subtle, to mawkishly earnest,


hearing problems and cerebral palsy, Max who is Ella’s boyfriend and who has a wealthy father, Fallon who is a girl who loves nature, and Zane who seems to be a bully. These five had been friends at the age of thirteen. Five years later they have drifted apart, except for Max and Ella. At that point Max’s sister Jessica dies. Ella is an accomplished athlete, reaching county standard. She is sponsored by Max’s rich father Neil. She and Max would like to become close but Ella has a phobia about sexual relations. She spends her life in an angry mood. All five of these young people believe they have been wronged by various people. They decide to exact revenge. Skuse’s novel tells the story of these vengeful campaigns, the secrets that emerge and the harm done by the exposure of these secrets. This is a problem


first two thirds of the novel are unrelentingly dark in tone and far from easy to read. No reader is likely to feel any liking for the characters for the first 200 pages. Next we come to Corey’s disabilities. He is said to have cerebral


Skuse remembers to give him a limp. But his impairment comes across as a literary device rather than a genuine condition. When Corey’s cat dies, he wants to get time off work. He instructs his friend to ‘play the cerebral palsy card’. It is hard enough getting young people to form positive and constructive views of disability and disabled people without putting such destructive images on display. The first two-thirds of this book are


Ardizzone, this is a powerful tale of people whom some would call ‘economic’


palsy. Occasionally book. The


disappointing. It is thus a huge relief to find its last 100 pages electrifying. The reasons for the behaviour of the quintet come tumbling out and make all kinds of sense. This last phase of the narrative also casts a telling light on the adults surrounding the young people. That is as much as a reviewer can state without letting out spoilers. RB


Tales of the Peculiar HHHH


Ransom Riggs, illus Andrew Davidson, Penguin, 978-0-1413-7340-9, 160pp, £12.99 hbk


Tales of the Peculiar edited and annotated by Millard Nullings, illustrated by Andrew Davidson, published by Syndrigast Publications - and very elegantly too with its gold embossed


papers and stunning illustrations. The clue is in the title - these are peculiar tales about peculiars, so the reader must be prepared to be intrigued, surprised – even horrified. However, the fiction is carried off with aplomb and a sure storytelling tone; folk and fairytale have clearly inspired some. These are tales that would appeal to readers who might be moving towards Dahl’s Tales of the Unexpected and who are already fans of Gidwitz. Not perhaps for everyone, but definitely for the curious – and the peculiar. FH


cover, attractive


end


Books for Keeps No.221 November 2016 31


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