This is the third young adult novel by British author Annabel Pitcher, and it may not translate so well to American readers, both because of some of the details rooted in life in the UK, and more because of the sense of humor of its narrator, Tess Turner. It’s a story of identity, friendship and coming of age. She is 15 when she finds writing by her father describing his negative feelings about her birth — she was born through IVF using another man’s sperm. She is devastated by the discovery and expresses her anger by refusing to talk. It’s not clear how much her reaction is under her control but it is clear that as she finds other ways to express her emotions, the problem of her mutism goes away. Tess is a pleasantly neurotic narrator of her life, and she is funny. This humor is brought out well by the performance of the unabridged audiobook by Jayne Entwistle, whose northern English accent gives the book all the more character. The novel does not have much action, and is largely dialog and rumination, which may be slow going for some readers. Occasionally, the book has literary or slightly technical references, which are interesting but again, mean the pace is slow. She faces her fears acting in a play and while she gets a bit of stage fright, she works through it and she succeeds. She also confronts her father over what he wrote, and that leads to a resolution.

© 2016 Christian Perring

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Christian Perring