Young adult books: smashing the sound of silence

1957, Madrid. Spain is in “a period of memory hibernation” after its civil war and the second World War, but Franco has begun to encourage tourism. The Americans who arrive are wealthy, privileged, and discouraged from looking too closely at a society under military dictatorship. When Daniel, fresh out of high school, accompanies his parents on their trip, his interest in the city is motivated by his love of photography and a desire to find material that will win prizes and acclaim back home. What he finds, of course, is love.

In The Fountains of Silence (Penguin, £14.99), Carnegie medallist Ruta Sepetys (Salt of the Sea) wisely offers up Daniel as a proxy for the reader, capable of asking questions of a society that is haunted by its history even today – it was not until October of this year that Franco's remains were removed from the controversial Valley of the Fallen. When he meets hotel maid Ana and her siblings, all of whom are suffering under the regime, he cannot quite understand her world, and the need those within it have to guard their secrets fiercely.

Sepetys also delves into the heads of the Spanish characters, though, and resists the urge to have the American – a Texan, at that – swoop in and save the day. Daniel is cautioned by his new friends not to speak for a country not his own, and there’s a bleak moment where his photographic evidence of a cover-up involving the trafficking of children is of no particular interest to the US media. Real historical documents are interspersed with the chapters, gently nudging the reader towards a sense of the relationship between Spain and America at the time.

The subject matter is bleak and yet deftly managed through the evocative prose; the extensive historical research is evident but never overplayed. Sepetys’s goal with this novel, as with her others, is to draw attention to “history’s dark corners”, and fortunately for readers she understands that her gift is storytelling rather than moralising. It’s a fascinating read, particularly in the context of young adult literature with its tendency to focus on war-time tales rather than their aftermath, and there is much here that still resonates today.

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Nigerian author Akwaeke Emezi turns to young adult fiction with Pet (Faber, £7.99), set in a world and a generation freed from monsters. These are the monsters we all know well – the authority figures who have taken advantage of their positions to do harm, to hurt and to kill. These monsters "always tried to apologise when they were caught, using the same slippery words that had worked for them before. They thought it would be enough, that some time would pass and they would be welcomed back as if nothing had happened. They were wrong."

A world where these monsters have been punished sounds idyllic, but as with Sepetys’s novel the danger of forgetting is noted: “Forgetting is how the monsters come back.” When the titular Pet springs to life from a painting, Jam finds herself an unexpected warrior against pretending and denial, and helps this strange creature hunt down a monster still lurking in the world, even as the adults insist there are none left. The premise is intriguing, although there are few surprises plot-wise; it is difficult to extend a fable to book length. This is a promising but ultimately underwhelming novel.

London-based Sophia Thakur joins the ranks of performance poets moving into work on the page for young people. Somebody Give This Heart A Pen (Walker, £7.99) is a collection tackling both the personal and political, addressing what it means to be young, black and female in Brexit Britain. "British weather wasn't made for us./Yet Britain was paved by us," she declares, and laments that people today "refuse learning" from the lessons of the past: "We are callusing where we should soften."

Some of the subject matter is slightly more predictable, focusing on body image and bullying, but Thakur, for the most part, offers up a turn of phrase that provides us with something new. The final poem, urging readers – and herself – to “write through and write around/Absolutely everything that tries to steal your sound” is one that will particularly strike a chord with young artists.

Another young woman makes her fiction debut with Full Disclosure (Penguin, £7.99). Camryn Garrett turned 20 this year; she has been a journalist since the age of 13. Both she and her narrator Simone are children of the internet and highly attuned to both popular culture and social justice issues. This is very much a novel rather than a thinly-disguised autobiography, though; Garrett uses the book to explore what it means to be HIV-positive with 21st-century medicine. Much of the literature around this illness has, naturally, focused on the "lost generation" of the 1980s, but what we have here is an upbeat and warm romance aimed at destigmatising the condition. Despite a few too many plot threads and issues raised in the text, it marks Garrett as a writer to watch.

Finally, Holly Bourne's latest, The Places I've Cried In Public (Usborne, £7.99) blends her trademark ear for teenage voices with a vital message: how to spot red flags in a relationship. The fact that her narrator reflects "Did I stop at this flag and think, Oh, I wonder why it's so red and flaggy? No, I did not" makes this dual-timeline story powerful without being preachy. We completely understand why Amelie blames herself for how her boyfriend treated her – and why she fell for him in the first place. Like Bourne's other work, it is a call for empathy wrapped in a relatable, moving story.