Joe is 17, a gifted artist and a brilliant older brother to 12-year-old Finn. They live with their Ma and Da in a Dublin tower block called Bojaxhiu or ‘the Jax’. It’s not an easy place to be a kid, especially when your father, Frank, is the muscle for the notorious gang leader Dessie ‘The Badger’ Murphy. But whether it’s daytrips to the beach or drawing secret sketches, Joe works hard to show Finn life beyond the battered concrete yard below their flat.
Joe is determined not to become like his Da. But when Finn falls ill, Joe finds his convictions harder to cling to. With his father now in prison, his mother submerged in her grief, and his relationships with friends and classmates crumbling, Joe has to figure out how to survive without becoming what the world around him expects him to be.
I absolutely devoured this book in 2 sittings, and it destroyed me.
I don’t want to say much and give any of the story away, but you will need tissues here ok. Poor Finn becoming ill and him coming to understand what is making him ill is such a hard thing to read. The emotion you get from him in the book, at a young 12 years old is so moving. But what got me more was the love between the brothers, which is more prominent in the second half of the book. The sketches are a lovely touch too.
Fiona Scarlett has written a great story, full of brilliant descriptions of life in ‘the Jax’, it felt like I was there. The local slang and accents, the residents and the local hooligans, it all is so real. It’s a story of love and hope, and a lot of hard life knocks in there too. I’d definitely recommend you read it, massive thumbs up from me.
Thanks again to Faber and Faber, Negalley, and as always the Author, Fiona Scarlett.
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