18-year-old Saoirse can’t wait to leave school – but just before the final exams her ex-boyfriend dies by suicide. Everyone blames Saoirse – even Saoirse herself, who cheated on him with his best friend. She is shunned by her schoolmates and suffers unbearable levels of anxiety, which her useless counsellor does nothing to alleviate. Can she rescue her sense of self?
There are books that are very hard to describe, even to yourself. There are books that nestle into your heart and stay there. Very rarely, there's a book that is both.
I'm not going to try to describe the plot, because I'll come up woefully short. It's set over about seven months in a small Irish town. Having read this, I think I must have been a very boring teenager - I didn't go out drinking, and I certainly didn't do it just before the Leaving Cert! But then I didn't have a beach to have bonfires on; that's probably the difference there.
This book is going to stay with me for a long time. Kisd should be reading it - but more than that, parents should be reading it too, to know what's going on in their kids' lifes, to get an idea of how to help them and when to step back. It's worth reading and then discussing with your kids, even.
I really hope this gets picked up for schools and libraries. It deserves to.
things i know publishes on the 5th of May, 2022. I received a free copy and am giving an honest review.
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