Review: Vivid Realism and Earthy Humour
Rating: 5 out of 5
Date: 04 24, 2014
loved 'Watermelon' for the combination of gritty realism and lively humour, and wasn't disappointed with this, which combines the same qualities.There are unsparing descriptions of brutality and degradation, but in the midst of these, the reader is subtly, almost imperceptibly, encouraged to be hopeful, like the teenage protagonists, who find a true love that is prepared to overcome all social barriers.Jay is defined by his alcoholic ne'r-do-well of a father as 'a loser, a thief, a good for nothing'. Eight years ago his mother left him with this paragon, unable to endure the physical and mental abuse any more; Jay has grown up accepting it.He escapes outside to the streets - which aren't much colder than his unheated, comfortless home - with his mate Billy to a diet of spliffs and junk good when he's lucky, and a series of empty sexual encounters with thoughtless girls. His life drifts meaningless, and when he is pressured into burgling a warehouse, he feels he has little enough to lose.Caught and sentenced to a community service order, Jay is introduced to a whole new world - that of a stables and riding school and the country life of the well-to-do. Here he not only discovers a previously unexpected talent for riding and caring for horses, but meets Anna.Anna is as emotionally deprived as Jay, though she has never wanted to anything material and her bedroom alone is as big as his house. Her parents also regard her as a loser. Nervous and bordering on developing an eating disorder, she is unhappy and lonely, a failure at her snobbish, fee-paying school, her only true friend her horse; and now it seems she is to be deprived of this comfort, as her parents have decided that she must have a new one, the potential champion, as skittish as Anna herself.Now, too, Rory, the insensitive, spoiled son of their incredibly rich neigbbours wants to take her on as his girlfriend. Neither his parents, nor hers, can think of anything she could possibly want more.Throughout the brutalities of his upbringing, Jay has somehow developed and retained a basic integrity, and a capacity for tenderness that is brought out by Anna and by the horses, too. In finding each other, they both begin to change; Anna begins to learn to be assertive and Jay to question the values he was brought up with, which can't help him when he is faced with a brutality and personal tragedy greater than any he's yet experienced, and a moral quandry: to Grass or not to Grass? The merciless world of drug trafficking closes in; can Jay escape it?The love affair in this story is tender, but never syrupy; the stark descriptions of street life are always lightened by a wonderful streak of humour.I recommend this face paced, engrossing story for YA readers and adults alike.I'll leave you with a few delightful quotes: -'The week ahead loomed over me like a bloodthirsty dentist'.'By about half three, his face looked like a baboon's arse.''His fist blasted into my cheekbone like a lead football.''Last year, when we were on holiday in Italy, I went in this huge,transparent plastic bubble thing. You got in through a slit, then they inflated it with air and Velcroed you in. They attached it to a long rope and launched you into the sea,where you bobbed, and spun, and fell around everywhere. It was fantastic. And lying there, in Jay's arms, reminded me of it. I could still see out, I knew everything on the outside still existed, but it couldn't touch me...'