“As Existor, I’m not just seen, I’m celebrated. I spent all day as a grubby caterpillar, then I got home and entered my cocoon phase, and now I’m in my final form, my true self, doing what plain old Fred Rako could never do.”
Nathanael Lessore – recently shortlisted for the Carnegie Medal for Writing, and last year’s winner of the Branford Boase Award – dives headfirst into the gap between reality and virtual personae in his latest novel, What Happens Online (Hot Key, £8.99). Fred, who admits to a new friend, “I guess I don’t get much joy from being in the real world,” is an endearing, relatable protagonist. When he decides to leverage Existor’s cyber fame for his own social standing at school, it all goes as messily wrong as you might expect.
This is a smart and sympathetic look at the world young people live in today, and thought-provoking on how to navigate the insanity of the internet – a space that can be used to forge connections and find community, particularly when isolated in the fraught world of school, but also, too often, to hurt others on a scale unimaginable by previous generations. Fred’s inner monologue, both neurotic and amusing, will charm more reluctant readers as well as existing fans of Lessore’s work.
“Internet friendships be wild, man.” Prolific romance author Beth Reekles also explores online connection in Do You Ship It? (Penguin, £8.99), an addictively entertaining account of a girl trying to get into a nerdy fantasy show to impress a boy, and falling for the TV series instead. Cerys is initially sneery about both the show and its online fandom – “Didn’t those girls have anything better to do? Didn’t they want to do something more productive ... Isn’t that a bit sad, a bit weird?” – even as her own buried love of art begins to creep to the surface while she notes sets and costume designs on her screen.
This is a deliberately trope-heavy celebration of passion and enthusiasm, drawing on familiar story elements (a misunderstanding, a love triangle) in both the fictional show and the world of the book.
Reekles, whose storytelling career began by sharing work on Wattpad, demonstrates a sharp awareness of the niche vocabulary and vibes of fandom spaces, while keeping her focus firmly on her heroine’s journey back to her authentic self, potentially cringe-making interests and all. Cerys/her art is my OTP.
Another corner of our contemporary culture centres on therapeutic wisdom often distilled into memes or bitesize videos, with watered-down versions of psychological frameworks and diagnoses making their way into everyday conversations. Novels – large enough to encompass nuance – are ideal spaces to tease out the tensions between encouraging self-awareness and promoting narcissism, between advocating for healthy, safe relationships and condemning everyday human imperfections. In this vein, we have Sophie Jo’s Red Flags (Scholastic, £8.99), a he-said she-said romantic comedy with substance.
Jo introduces us to Poppy, unsure of the line between high and impossible standards, and Cam, known for fleeing relationships for the flimsiest of reasons. Their friends, for different reasons, challenge them to date someone for two months – to put up with someone else’s flaws and see where it goes. Neither is entirely themselves at first, hoping to prompt the other to end things, but as time goes on their connection grows stronger. Much of the commentary is provided by their pals, who get in some great one-liners – “The bar for straight men is so low that archaeologists are going to be digging it up and studying it in years to come” stands out – alongside real wisdom about giving messy humans a chance to be kind to one another, beyond reductive, knee-jerk labels.
“A daughter born to a house crafted/By sons,” Daisy has always found purpose in her music. It made her “notable/Not popular”, and at school she was not the only one surprised when charming, athletic David picked her as his girlfriend. But now she’s alone, heartbroken, and that whirlwind romance may have set her musical career back irrevocably: “I lost/My mind/And forgot who I was.”
A possible new friend and an illness in the family complicate things further, as Daisy struggles through her final year of school and tries to find her way back to the parts of herself that she’s neglected.
Gráinne O’Brien’s Solo (Little Island, £8.99) is an impressive YA debut from a versatile writer (her previous title is a playful picture-book retelling of Cinderella for a Limerick audience), an ambitious verse novel that uses musical terminology and definitions as an extended metaphor throughout.
She is excellent on the specifics of Irish school life – David, a GAA player, is set to lift “The Curse” of the local team – but there is also a universal story here about losing one’s way and recovering from, as another struggling young fictional character once put it, the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune. Daisy is a memorable heroine; expect to see this book on a shortlist or two.
Alex Wheatle, known to many as the Brixton Bard, died last month from prostate cancer. In typical mode, he spent his final years campaigning to raise awareness of its higher incidence in black men, following decades of working to encourage literacy and creativity among young people. The Girl with the Red Boots (Hodder Children’s, £9.99) is a fitting final standalone title from the accomplished author, set in – of course – Brixton, though this time seen through the eyes of 14-year-old Kadeen, who moves to England (a place of “broad shiny buildings and even broader grey clouds”) from Jamaica after witnessing her brother’s murder at the hands of a notorious criminal.
With her safety at risk as someone capable of identifying the shooter, and her brother’s memory still haunting her, she finds some solace in a local football team, though her strict aunt is reluctant to let her get too involved. This tense tale remains hopeful in the face of adversity, never shying away from uncomfortable truths but never giving in to self pity, either.
Heartbroken fans may be somewhat comforted to know that a final title in his beloved Crongton series, A Crongton Christmas Party, will also be out later this year.
Finally, Jenny Ireland’s latest romance, Matched Up (Penguin, £8.99), also uses the world of football as a space where young women might find a home for themselves. Lexie’s seemingly perfect life is disrupted when her beloved twin – “that word used to mean something” – is revealed to be dating her best friend. The secrecy feels like a betrayal, and the conflict is not helped by the friend’s greater success on their football team – Megan has scouts coming to see her play, while Lexie counts herself lucky to get off the bench.
Enter new boy Shane, “the one person who made me feel like I wasn’t a complete and utter failure”, who helps Lexie train (their commitment to this early-morning routine alongside sizzling chemistry is to be commended) but seems to have a secret of his own.
Slightly lighter fare than Ireland’s previous work, this is a sweet romance to curl up with for an escapist afternoon.
