HOME.

HOME by AMANDA BERRIMAN.

She lives in a flat with her mother and baby brother and she knows a lot. She knows their flat is high up and the stairs are smelly. She knows she shouldn't draw on the peeling wallpaper or touch the broken window. And she knows she loves her mummy and baby brother Toby. 

She does not know that their landlord is threatening to evict them and that Toby’s cough is going to get much worse. Or that Paige, her new best friend, has a secret that will explode their world.

- amazon.co.uk Blurb

SOURCE ... A proof copy, won courtesy of Penguin Books on FaceBook, as such I am not at liberty to share the First Sentence or my Memorable Moment. 

READ FOR A CHALLENGE? ... No.

MY THOUGHTS ... Well! Who would have thought it, reduced to tears by a book narrated by a 4 year old. 
Yes, Amanda Berriman's fictitious Jesika really is that powerful a voice.

Incredibly moving, the first-person narrative compelling if, with its 'forgotted' rather than 'forgotten', its 'ahind' rather than 'behind' (a ploy which actually works really well in getting across the limitations with which not just Jesika's language is stilted) a little difficult to get accustomed to. 

A novel (the author's first) of growing up in poverty, of a child told 'We don't need to tell your Mum about this. It can be our secret', of dirty needles left in stairwells, of the vulnerable failed; the result of society's inequalities, tempered slightly by the intimacy, the innocence, the naivety, of its young protagonist.

One of my favourite reads this year. Heartbreakingly authentic, a sad indictment to our times. My emotions put through the wringer, I almost didn't want to continue reading but, whilst at times unbearably harrowing, Home is shot through with love and hope of a better tomorrow.