BfK 14+Secondary/Adult continued Ed’s Choice Unbecoming HHHHH


Jenny Downham, David Fickling Books, 978-1-9109-8902-9, 437pp, 7.99, pbk


Jenny Downham has already made a name for herself through her bold choice of topics for her first two novels. This, her third, continues the tradition. Katie is confused. Intelligent,


destined to aim for a top university, happy to conform, yet she feels hemmed in by her mother’s attempts to guide and control. She is unsure about what she feels about boys or why she is so drawn to girls, in particular Simona. Then Mary arrives. Mary, her grandmother whom she does not know; Mary suffering from old age and memory. And what about her brother with special needs, Chris? Or her Dad now with a new family. Life is complicated especially when it is full of secrets. This is a substantial read - indeed,


this would be my main criticism, the


still a satisfying novel that explores many issues that young readers and modern families can and often do, experience; the relationship between the generations, the problems faced by both those who suffer from dementia or Alzheimers and those who care for them, identity and choices. On the face of it there might be an overload of issues. However, Downham manages to avoid the tick list and her writing is both fresh and vivid. Katie’s family, though


anything but normal and believable. dysfunctional never seems


Their use of social media looms large as an influence. The book is lofty in ambition and aspirational in intent. But it gets down to the dirty realities of the world too. This brilliant book should be read by


RB Nightwanderers HHHH


C. J. Flood, Simon and Schuster, 320pp, 978-0-8570-7805-6, £7.99 pbk


C J Flood’s debut Infinite Sky won the Branford Boase Award in 2014. Her new book Nightwanderers is another beautifully written, thought- provoking novel


captures the thoughts and feelings of a teenage girl at a time of real drama. ‘Whenever


kindred, I thought of me and Ti’, says central character Rosie about her best friend. Ti fascinates Rosie from her first day at school when, caught in the rain, ‘she didn’t run shrieking to the veranda like the rest of us girls, but stood face to the sky, and let herself get drenched.’ Rosie longs to be as brave and wild as Ti, and they are never closer than on their secret night-time excursions along the cliff-tops near the little seaside


I heard the word


town where they live, and even through their neighbours’ gardens. This nightwandering is at the heart of the book: out at night when it’s so dark they can’t even see, we feel the very essence of the two girls, and it’s on one of these adventures that the pivotal event happens that pushes Rosie and Ti apart. Spying on the teacher who had her twin sister


30 Books for Keeps No.219 July 2016 that absolutely length. However, the result is


Ophelia expelled, Ti is caught, and expelled too as a result. Rosie is there but fails to defend her friend. Rosie’s home life is anything but


free. Her mother is ill – later we learn she has chronic fatigue syndrome – and Rosie is under pressure not to do anything that will add to the stress her mum feels.


risk standing up for Ti and her dad is only too happy when their friendship seems to be lessening. A possible romance with a boy in her class serves to push Rosie and Ti further apart, and a combination of circumstances leads to apparent tragedy. In fact,


Nightwanderers is a book of second chances, and Rosie and Ti (it’s short for Titania, surely no accident) are allowed a happy ending. Yet, there’s a tension throughout, and it’s very much a book of brinks, literally, as the girls wander those


unlike Infinite Sky,


Drawing everything together are Katie and Mary. The story is told through their eyes - Katie’s in the present, Mary’s both in the past - and interestingly, the present. Here are two characters the reader can inhabit, experiencing emotions, frustrations and situations that are both of their time and yet universal and timeless. Just as the title Unbecoming hints at a variety of meanings, so Downham’s novel is not a simple story of family relationships or even of a girl growing up. It is, perhaps, a work in progress, and the reader leaves with a strong sense that the lives of Katie and her family will continue even when the book is closed. Yes, it could have been edited down


but it remains a book to recommend to teen readers who want to be taken below the surface of the story. Excellent.


FH


and metaphorically – we feel that at any moment it could all fall down. Flood explores ideas of identity and self;


care about her characters, and take something special from this book . MMa


Max HHHH


Sarah Cohen-Scali, Penny Hueston (translator), Walker Books, 382pp, 978–1–4063–6825–3, pbk


The Lebensborn


devised by the German Nazi party. It involved the selective breeding of perfect


programme was


blue-eyed, from parents hand-picked for their racial purity. Max is the first baby produced by this genetic engineering project, born in 1936. Significantly he is also born on the birthday of the Führer Adolf Hitler. The book is a first person narrative,


a bildungsroman about Max’s upbringing and indoctrination. The book takes off when Max, despite the intense pressure on him, begins to question the values imposed by Nazism. The first parts of this book strain the


any girl who, from the age of thirteen, feels herself to be different.


Aryan children, blond and readers will understand and cliff tops, There’s no way she can London Belongs To Us HHHH


Sarra Manning, Hot Key Books, 272pp, 978-1-4714-0461-0, £6.99, pbk


London can be a difficult place to navigate and this becomes particularly progressions


apparent


to Us as we follow a young girl called Sunny as she adventures her way through the boroughs in order to confront a boyfriend who has betrayed her trust in a most despicable way. Along the way, Sunny meets a flurry colourful characters and forms


of London Belongs through of


new allies with the most unusual people until she finally finds out the truth, stands up for herself and has the most incredible adventure across London along the way. We meet Sunny as a young woman who is fairly downtrodden receiving some


on what is supposed to be a most memorable day in her life. It becomes apparent through the duration of the book that although this isn’t quite the day that Sunny expected, it’s certainly not one that she is likely to forget. We follow this beautiful character


as she grows in confidence, strength and heart and there is a strong sense of rooting for Sunny from the start. London Belongs To Us is a fast-paced


However, it’s not the adventure that makes this book appealing, it’s the character development that wins you over and don’t be surprised if Sunny stays with you long after you’ve turned the final page.


ARo You Know Me Well HHHH


Nina LaCour and David Levithan, Macmillan, 256pp, 978-1-5098-2393-2, £7.99, pbk


belief of the reader. Max’s thoughts and feelings not just from the moment of his birth but actually from before his birth, seem too rational and too coherent to command belief. It is as if the author is imposing adult thoughts on a child who even at the close of the narrative is less than ten years old. The book presents


in graphic detail, including the processes


prostitution. Max displays a very limited range of emotions: emotions are for weaklings. Cohen-Scali makes as good a job as


of copulation


its issues and


possible in presenting the emergence of the Nazi ideology as a convincing phenomenon. However repellent the ideology, the reader can see how the intensity of indoctrination led people to accept it. They were brainwashed. For example Max describes as ‘rabbits’ the disabled children sent off under the T4 programme for medical experimentation or death. This book will cross over the barrier between older children and young adults. But it is not a book that could be enjoyed by younger readers, too unrelenting by far for that.


RB


Sometimes it takes a perfect stranger to bring out a side in you that you never knew existed. This is certainly the case for Mark and Kate who become fast friends when they cross paths on the most unusual of nights. A firm bond is formed through their romantic trials and tribulations as Kate is resisting a girl she has been in love with from afar and Ryan has to come to terms with his best friend falling love with someone else. When Kate and Mark first meet,


little do they know how important they will be in each other’s lives. You know Me Well is a beautiful story about first love for the good, the bad and the ugly. Not only a love story, You Know Me Well discusses the hardship some young people face growing up within the LGBT community including the harsh reality of being rejected by not only peers but the family also. You Know Me Well is expertly


written by two renowned YA authors, Nina LaCour, and David Levithan. The combination of both authors shapes a unique prose in which the voices of both Kate and Mark are equally as strong, intriguing and also perfectly intertwined. Although there are a few clichés throughout, the quality of the narrative will easily have you hooked from the word go and the depth of the characters will keep you reading on until the very end.


ARo sprint through London. devastating news after the


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