A range of books for young adults includes topics that will be shocking to readers – and their parents, writes ROBERT DUNBAR
THERE IS a moment in Tabitha Suzuma's Forbidden(Definitions, £6.99) when Maya, its 16-year-old heroine, says to her friend Francie, "So nothing is taboo any more?" It is a question which must occur increasingly to anyone keeping abreast of developments in what we have come to designate "Young Adult" fiction and one which will definitely surface in a reading of Suzuma's own novel. For Maya's query arises from the fact that she has fallen passionately in love with her brother Lochan, one year her senior, an obsession which in its move into a fully consensual sexual relationship becomes the focus of what – predictably perhaps – grows into a harrowingly tragic story.
Narrated in alternate chapters by the two teenagers, the novel makes its greatest claim on the reader’s attention by presenting the abnormal in a context which, as Lochan himself at one point describes it, “is not an ideal family set-up but one which just about fits within the bounds of normality”. An absentee father, a feckless and alcoholic mother, three younger siblings: all authentically combine to impel Maya and Lochan into their ever closer union. This, of course, is an interpretation which, while it may explain, does not necessarily excuse. Suzuma’s writing is compelling and its quality beyond question but there will be many (and not just those in the “young adult” category) who will be genuinely shocked by what they are reading here.
The eight short stories which comprise Keith Gray's anthology Losing It(Andersen, £5.99) might initially be thought to have a similar potential to shock, given their shared theme of the circumstances attending the loss of one's virginity. But the calibre of the writers – Melvin Burgess, Anne Fine, Mary Hooper, Sophie McKenzie, Patrick Ness, Bali Rai, Jenny Valentine and Gray himself – is such that the overall note to emerge is far removed from mere sensationalism. And it is not a note unrelieved by humour or poignancy. Fine's Finding It(judiciously placed as the volume's concluding story) succeeds beautifully in combining both. If there are readers determined to be shocked they should turn immediately to Ness's Different for Boyswhich, with its tantalising use of blacked out words and phrases, mischievously clinches the argument about what "young adults" should or should not be reading and at the same time reminds us of the pains of adolescent difference and loneliness. (All this and a hilarious walk-on part for golfer Padraig Harrington!)
A further collection of short stories – Margo Lanagan's White Time(David Fickling, £6.99) – trades also in difference and loneliness but in a manner much more oblique and much sharper than that of the contributions to Gray's anthology. When Tess, the heroine of The Boy Who Didn't Yearn, proclaims, "I'm so lonely in my life!", the context makes it clear that she is voicing something well beyond mere adolescent angst and in the process demonstrating Lanagan's skill in moving outside conventionally limited perceptions. Themes here are genuinely adult and their treatment devoid of simplification or condescension. The economy of style, allied to the occasionally surreal choice of characters and settings, may result in fictions and fables not always immediately accessible to younger readers but their fascination will repay close, careful attention.
"I didn't want to be different . . . I was 16 years old . . . I just wanted to be normal." Thus Tom Harvey, hero of Kevin Brooks's iBoy(Penguin, £6.99) some time after an iPhone has been thrown at him, lodged in his brain and had far-reaching effects on his life and personality.
Growing up in the gang-controlled tower blocks of suburban London, Tom is to discover that his “accident” will play a major role in his attempts to grapple with the consequences of a rape perpetrated on his friend Lucy. Will his new brainpower turn out to be a help or hindrance and will it, and at what cost, transform him into a hero? Thoroughly up to date in its technological dimensions, Brooks’s novel provides a harsh and gritty insight – complete with linguistic candour – into the jungle of some of our contemporary streets, the kind of place, as Tom expresses it, “that preys on easily led idiots”.
"Vampire? such a provocative word, wrapped in too many cliches and girly novels." With sentiments such as these given expression in Matt Haig's The Radleys(Walker Canongate, £10), we should expect something different from the fare provided by Stephenie Meyer and her numerous imitators. And we will not be disappointed.
The Radley family, living in their apparently ordinary Yorkshire town, live apparently ordinary lives – but they harbour a secret; or, more exactly, the parents harbour a secret, which only the arrival of the larger-than-life Uncle Will threatens to explode. There are some very funny literary and sexual jokes (often at the expense of middle-class pretensions and/or Lord Byron) and some nicely embedded arguments about the relative merits of indulgence and abstinence. It is all very knowing and tongue in cheek (or neck), a highly diverting addendum to the current vampire craze. It is also, in many senses, the most “adult” of the “young adult” books reviewed here.
Robert Dunbar is a commentator on children’s books and reading
