It’s no spoiler to tell
you that my latest novel, ‘The Nearest Faraway Place’ begins with a terrible
accident. It’s the literary equivalent
of delivering a knockout punch before the audience has even got comfortable in
their seats. Game over. Story finished. The end.
Except of course, the game is not over and the story must go on. In fiction - just as in life - endings and
beginnings blur together in a never-ending cycle and we humans reveal ourselves
to be a remarkably resilient bunch. And
nowhere is this resilience more strikingly apparent than in the teenager. Where there is grief and loss, there is
almost always love and hope. Below is my
top ten list of books which show teenagers and tweens at their most vulnerable -
while celebrating, too, youth’s infinite capacity for recovery and optimism.
Jane Eyre – Charlotte Brontë
Surely everyone knows
something of this story whether they’ve read it or not. It’s one of those nineteenth century
emotional rollercoasters which lifts the reader up on one page only to bring
them crashing down on the next. Orphaned Jane Eyre lives in the house of her
rich cruel aunt with her rich cruel cousins and keenly feels the absence of
love in her life. But then Jane is sent to Lowood School and is
finally free of her hideous relations.
Hooray! Except that Lowood turns
out to be a joyless hellhole just screaming to be shut down by OFSTED. Boo!
It’s OK though because Jane is befriended by the wise, kind and saintly
Helen Burns. But then Helen dies of
consumption. And so it continues. Jane is feisty, self-reliant, irrepressible
and wonderful. I first read this book
when I was twelve - or rather, I repeatedly read the first half of it. My twelve-year-old self had zero interest in
Jane’s adult shenanigans and all that soppy Mr Rochester stuff.
2. Life: An Exploded Diagram – Mal Peet
Oh how I love, love, love
this book! Is it a novel or is it an
autobiography? In a note at the back, Mal
Peet tells us it’s actually a bit of both.
Clem - or is it Mal? - looks back on his life and narrates the story of
his origins in rural Norfolk. He tells us
about his stern and domineering grandmother – the marvellously named Win Little
– and his own premature birth during World War Two when a German bomber crash-lands
into the garden of the house where Win and his heavily-pregnant mother live. The novel grows into a touching and funny teenage
love story which culminates in a disastrous ending. Love, lust, regret, loss – it is all
here. Oh, and there is not one but two jaw-dropping endings. Ultimately, it is hope that prevails, of
course.
3. A Time to Love, A Time to Mourn – Paige
Dixon
Way, way back before the
words Youtube, Smartphone or Ice-Bucket
Challenge meant anything to anyone, I read a book that made me aware of a serious
degenerative illness called ALS. Or
Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis to give it its full term. All eleven syllables have been burned on my
brain since the age of thirteen when I powered my way through Paige Dixon’s heart-breaking
teen novel about an eighteen-year-old boy called Jordan who, one day, experiences
a weird loss of sensation in his arm while playing tennis. From there onwards, Jordan’s health plummets. BUT, in this unforgettable story, the
bleaker things get, the more Jordan’s mental strength soars. I remember that I cried snot and tears at the
ending. I also remember that I loved
Jordan Phillips absolutely. And secretly
vowed that Morten Harket and I would name our future son Jordan Phillip in Jordan’s
memory.
4.
Tape
– Steven Camden
At the heart of this novel
is a premise built pretty much upon cassette tapes. Having spent my entire childhood and teenage
years winding chewed-up tape back into its rightful place with the end of a
pencil, I was OBVIOUSLY GOING TO LIKE THIS BOOK. In fact, I loved it. It’s a love story. It’s also a very sad story. And it’s about family too and wanting to know
more about those who came before you in order to get a clearer understanding of
who you are. It’s touching and real and very, very
clever. I wish I’d written it.
5.
Broken
Soup – Jenny Valentine
This is another book
about family. Jenny Valentine is particularly
great at capturing in words the more difficult aspects of family life, and this
book is a quiet little masterpiece in the study of grief and breakup and how
that can impact upon the life of a teenager.
But we needn’t fret too much about 15 year old Rowan. While everyone around her is losing their
heads, she keeps hers firmly on her shoulders.
What a woman!
6.
The
Outsiders – S.E Hinton
If, like me, your
introduction to this book was via the 1980s brat-pack film, things can only get
better. The film was great. The book is better. Ponyboy Curtis is a sensitive soul in a
brutal world. No wonder he feels like he
is an outsider. There’s nothing more I need
to say really. Other than that S.E
Hinton was 16 years old when she wrote this. SIXTEEN.
And that this book about gangster-boys was WRITTEN BY A GIRL.
7.
Refugee
Boy – Benjamin Zephaniah
I first read this book
with a class of thirteen year olds when I was an English teacher almost twenty
years ago. But, sadly, the issues in
this book seem more relevant than ever.
14-year-old Alem lives in Ethiopia.
His father is Ethiopian and his mother is Eritrean. The two countries are at war. One day, Alem’s father treats him
unexpectedly to a holiday in London. And
then... he just disappears leaving Alem completely alone in a foreign country. This is another story about love and
loss. It’s also a story about human
beings who find themselves in situations so dire that they’ll do anything to
get themselves or their loved ones to a safer place. And about how the people in those ‘safer
places’ receive them.
8.
Waterland
– Graham Swift
This is another one of
those novels I’ve never been able to forget.
I read it in my first year as an undergraduate and it has stayed with me
and haunted me ever since. There’s an
awful lot going on in this novel. Love,
grief, breakdown, family secrets, abuse... and it’s all set against a very
atmospheric Fenland setting. Tom, Dick
and Mary are the teenagers. There is
love, there is certainly loss and.... well, actually, the teen resilience
either burns out or peters out for all three of them. Oh dear.
But quite simply, this novel is magnificent. Depressing? Hell yes!
But still magnificent.
9.
We
Were Liars – E. Lockhart
Clever. Clever.
Clever. Cadence Sinclair is
seventeen and has survived a horrific trauma which has affected her memory. We aren’t quite sure what it is. In fact, as the title suggests, we can never
be too sure about anything that Cadence is telling us. But slowly, Cadence starts to work things out
and so do we. And I’m sure the
experience of reading this unique story is different for every reader. I read this just as I was in the early stages
of mulling over an idea that became ‘The Nearest Faraway Place.’ I’m sure it added something to the flavour of
what I would go on to write. The very next
book I read definitely added something too.
It was...
1 The
Goldfinch – Donna Tartt
Wow. Just wow.
In the opening pages of the novel, 13-year-old Theo Decker finds himself
in the middle of a devastating terrorist attack which will impact upon his
entire life. It’s shocking. It’s entirely convincing. And it is, of course, a beautiful and
captivating read. And Theo’s story goes from New York City to Las Vegas and back again and then to
Amsterdam. It’s heart-breaking and nail-biting
and frequently very funny. And at the
end, I felt there was a section where Donna Tartt stepped away from her role as
story-teller and just started talking to me – ME – directly – about THE MEANING
OF MY LIFE. At the end, I remember
closing this brick of a book and thinking Wow. Just wow.
