We are all a little bit broken, or so I’m told.
Our collective damages sustained but not limited to those darn teen years which define and shape us into the adults which we (reluctantly) evolve into.
YA offers us a way to touch on those defining moments that is safe, providing enough of an emotional reverberation to feel the emotions of the characters in the stories we read without taking on the baggage.
Without the triggers. It’s riding a roller coaster to try and experience an earthquake.
There are a few writers that write with an emotional clarity that pushes us beyond the safe zones that separate the adult and the teenager. The characters they create we feel intensely because the emotional reverberation is not safe, it’s deadly - the harsh shout in the dark is a gut wound, the betrayal is a river of tears and the final twist is an unexpected stomach churning fall into oblivion.
Mine by Sally Partridge is a story about love.
Fin and Kay find each other in the broken wreckage of their lives amidst the constricting reality of high school, Mean Girls and Family. Kay believes she is unloved and unworthy. Fin is angry and lost, looking to find someone to save. They find in each other exactly what they want.
This is not the standard YA novel. No glowing vampires are finding redemption while a dying boy looks for a world famous author to impress a dying girl – this is not that book.
Mine is real. The characters you can see in the faces of that kid in the back row at school, in the sad glance across an office cubicle, in the overheard conversation in the queue and in the douche nozzle that feeds you that line at a club – Mine is real broken people, trying to find redemption in love.
In other words, a perfect read for someone wanting more than just the typical YA novel.
Other, less wishy washy reviews:
Teenlibrarian.co.uk
pen SouthAfrica
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