It is an odd choice for a male writer to have a young girl as their primary protagonist and narrative voice, but I think it managed to work.
The first thing about the book, something I didn’t realise going in, was all the swearing. The language is not something I relished, but given the roughness of the lives described, the language was not too out of place. This is the story of Cora Mowat, a girl who lived with her mother till a freak accident meant the former had to move on to their earlier shared dreams without the other.
Nothing is happy about the book. Every smile or companionship is hard fought. Cora has a diagnosis from her school which she keeps hidden with embarrassment of being even more different from her classmates.
The relationships, fraught as they are, are quite realistic. I think people who read darker books than I usually do would better appreciate this book. I would definitely try another book by the author.
I received an ARC thanks to Netgalley and the publishers but the review is entirely based on my own reading experience.
