“The fight might have started over Ella Diamond but it looked like it had turned into a pitched interschool battle, rival team tensions and resentments exploding like a volcano.” The privileged world of south Co Dublin schools, complete with wild parties that leave posh houses “completely trashed”, forms the backdrop for Something Terrible Happened Last Night (Gill Books, €12.99), best-selling crime author Sam Blake’s first foray into teen fiction. At first, the death of the rugby golden boy seems merely an unfortunate outcome of a drunken brawl getting out of hand, but it soon becomes clear that the stabbing must have been deliberate, even premeditated.
To solve this murder, three pals turn to the social media accounts that have meticulously documented the night in question and try to establish the whereabouts of all the party attendees. “If we can grab enough footage, between the stories and the posts and Snaps, we might be able to work out where everyone was when it all started.” It’s a smart handling of omnipresent smartphones, particularly in a genre that often finds ways to remove them from the equation. Frankie, Sorcha and Jess do not need to be aspiring detectives to become interested in this case; much of the evidence is already material they’ve seen and now need to reassess.
The cast is a little cluttered but the plot motors along; the small details of teenage life are captured authentically on the page. There’s a moment when Frankie explains, almost pityingly, to the guard interviewing her that the seemingly suspicious anonymous posting on a school website is in fact a familiar movie quote; the students who have secrets of their own to hide, however seemingly trivial in comparison to a death, still protect them for as long as possible. An intriguing page-turner, with a setting that has much potential for future twisty mysteries.
In a world that expects young gay men to adhere to a certain ideal, the prospect of “a hideous white-hot brand” across his chest for the rest of his life makes him determined to use the time before the surgery to find a boyfriend
Death, albeit the horror-film kind, is also on the minds of the characters in William Hussey’s Broken Hearts and Zombie Parts (Usborne, £8.99), an endearing and occasionally tear-jerking tale of movie-making, friendship and love. Narrator Jesse is a bit of a dorky babbler, prone to talking too much or saying the wrong thing at the wrong time. He’s also hilarious.
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When we first meet him, he lies “naked apart from this flimsy gown, a hairy man-mountain leaning over me, caressing my chest”, then quickly reassures us that it’s not “some weird sex dungeon thing.” At 17, immediately following a slightly disastrous school dance, Jesse is told he needs heart surgery. While that scares him, the more haunting concern is for his appearance. Already worried about whether anyone will ever love him, especially in a world that expects young gay men to adhere to a certain ideal, the prospect of “a hideous white-hot brand” across his chest for the rest of his life makes him determined to use the time before the surgery to find a boyfriend.
Alongside this quest is his attempt, along with his two best friends, to make the zombie film of their dreams – a film that, like the best horror movies, reflects real-life concerns about world-ending (or friendship-ending) threats. Hussey skilfully balances the quirky with the realistic throughout, and handles the medical details with an informed yet light touch. A warm, moving, charming zom-rom-com.
A darker depiction of the supernatural can be found in Nadia Attia’s debut Verge (Serpent’s Tail, £14.99), a coming-of-age folk horror tale that will appeal to older teens. In a slightly alternate Britain, “the Split” has transformed the Kingdom into a deeply fragmented country. Each county has its own rules, with borders that are not easily crossed, and “as fast as these geological surgeons could add their steel scars to the map, more bits of land were dropping into the sea or being flooded beyond salvation”.
Halim has been paid to take Rowena across several of those borders, to the grandmother who must heal her of a curse before she turns 18. While he doesn’t believe in curses or magic of any kind, he does understand deadlines; he has a handful of weeks left to decide whether he will return to his wealthy parents and become part of their unethical but profitable pharmaceutical empire. Sparks fly between the two as they travel, though their destination proves far more sinister than either imagined. Gripping and lyrical.
While never heavy-handed, this is a sharp reminder of the cruelty and pressure that often accompanies success, particularly the harsh judgment of young women in the spotlight’s glare
The always-thoughtful Sara Barnard is on form with Where the Light Goes (Walker Books, £8.99), a sensitive portrayal of losing an older sister to suicide. Sixteen-year-old Emmy has always idolised Beth, but her grief – “a scream you’re living inside” – is not allowed to remain private. As founder and one-quarter of a popular girl band, Beth is “Lizzie Beck” to the rest of the world – which includes the tabloid media that has revelled in every outburst or difficulty Beth has experienced.
While never heavy-handed, this is a sharp reminder of the cruelty and pressure that often accompanies success, particularly the harsh judgment of young women in the spotlight’s glare. Barnard resists presenting this as the sole reason for Beth’s troubles, however, aware – as Emmy becomes throughout the book – of how dangerous simple, single-reason narratives can be. Moving between straightforward prose and more fragmented verse, she depicts the necessity, yet impossibility, of moving on after this kind of loss. It’s both heart-wrenching and hopeful.
We Used to Be Friends is a far better book for its honesty in depicting the specific pain of a friend “break-up”
There are other losses that wound; Amy Spalding’s We Used to Be Friends (Abrams, £9.99) is a quietly devastating account of a friendship falling apart. Athletic James (named so because her parents were expecting a boy) and popular Kat have been best friends their whole lives, but in their final year of high school – between college pressure, family strains and new relationships – it starts to go horribly wrong. “I try to remember if she was quite this annoying last year,” James notes at one point.
The narration is split between the two girls, with one moving forward and the other moving backward through the year. The format means there’s a sickening inevitability to the end of their relationship, made bitter-sweet by a final chapter set during a more hopeful time. It would have been so easy to give this book a different ending, one that reinforces the cliche about boyfriends (or girlfriends) coming and going but friendships being “forever” – it is a far better book for its honesty in depicting the specific pain of a friend “break-up”.
Yami of Sonora Reyes’s The Lesbiana’s Guide to Catholic School (Faber, £8.99) has also lost her best friend of many years. Having fallen for her, and been badly burned, she realises now that “Bianca is a special breed of evil ... that preys on trust, on vulnerability”, “just one of those straight girls who kisses girls when there are cute boys around to see”. Yami’s determined not to develop a crush at her new school, but meeting the outspoken – and rainbow-wearing – Bo means that it’s more difficult than anticipated.
Alongside the coming-out narrative, there’s an exploration of class and race that feels organic to the plot, and is handled with subtlety and nuance. Yami’s tender, determined and witty voice makes this a novel well worth reading.
