Richard W. Hardwick

My understanding is that the author used to work in a shelter for homeless teenagers in Newcastle. He's very careful to make the exact location in this book vague, but I used to live on a street here in the city and there was an establishment further up with burned out cars outside all the time. On the assumption that that is the place all the other location clues fall into place.

I've read a fair few dialect things over the years and most authors use a kind of faux-phonetic spelling that interferes with one's reading pleasure. Here, if Danny used a dialect word, or if he makes a grammatical error, Hardwick gives it to us, but if he uses a standard English word, no matter how dialectically pronounced, he spells it properly. A good decision.

Really a superb novel. There's a real sense of character; that never slips and really it's word perfect. A pleasure to find something that has time and care taken with it.… (mehr)

This is the tale of sixteen year old Danny who is made homeless when kicked out of home by his parents after disappearing for two days after his sixteenth birthday.

I started this and really wasn’t sure it was going to be to my taste, but I was glad to be proved wrong. I found the writing style easy to read, but initially it was interspersed with other bits of writing that made the story a little difficult to follow, but this became less over the course of the book. I found that initially Danny came across as a very shallow young lad, but after being made homeless and then finding himself a place in a young people’s hostel I started to see another side to Danny appear. He makes a pal there called Goocher, although finds himself sharing a room with a ’smackhead’ Paul. Lots of fighting happens at the hostel along with drugs, sex and drink, but we also see the camaraderie of the young people and how they will look out for their pals.

When Lucy comes into the picture we can really start to see the softer side to Danny and it makes you feel so sad that his own family have become dysfunctional.

I found that through the story I really started to root for Danny and really hope that he could pull his life around and make something of himself. I then start thinking about life on the streets and those that are homeless. Many probably have much they could give to society, but with their upbringings and hardships that they have had to face make this an almost impossible task for them.

Overall I would say this is a novel that really draws you in and can help you understand the lives of those less fortunate than yourself and I felt could make you think under different circumstances “that could be me!” I have certainly been surprised by other’s behaviour (people that I think I know well) when they have been put under a certain set of circumstances and so I know that people can be a mix of many things depending on their situation. I think this is a book that will stick with me for sure and it’s certainly one that I would recommend.… (mehr)