INKY SQUIGGLES

We Are Not Okay by Natália Gomes , £7.99   (HQ Stories, 9780008291846) Publication date:  2 May 2019 My rating:   ★ ★ ☆ ☆ ☆ ⚠️  This review contains spoilers and refers to sensitive issues, including sexual assault and suicide. Four teenage girls: all of them different, all of them struggling with their own shame and secrets. Lucy loves to gossip, Ulana is from a conservative Muslim family, Trina likes to party and Sophia has a seemingly perfect boyfriend. But in this book by the author of the dark social problem novel Dear Charlie , no one is exactly as they first appear. Gomes’ chatty, readable narrative style belies, and sometimes jars with, its mature subject matter, which ranges from interracial relationships and teen pregnancy to slut-shaming and sexual assault. The chapters cycle through each girl’s perspective; each is given a voice, and I assume that the intent is for the reader to identify with different aspects of the narratives, building a cumul...

Charlie Changes into a Chicken by Sam Copeland  (writer) and Sarah Horne (illustrator) , £6.99 (Penguin, 9780241346211) Publication date: 7 February 2019 My rating:  ★ ★ ★ ★ ☆ Meet Charlie. He’s a fairly normal nine-year-old who enjoys playing FIFA on the PS4 and tries to stay positive—even though he’s the target of the school bully and his brother is in hospital. Oh, and he also happens to turn into a colourful menagerie of animals when he least expects it, from a high-hopping flea to an incontinent rhino. Young readers are sure to be delighted by Charlie’s lively tale, which begins in action-packed fashion and manages to sustain its pace throughout. Each animal transformation is as unpredictable as its consequences, setting off an imaginative chain of preposterous events.

Photo credit: Rick's Photo Thing I remember the first time I had to study through the whole day, stopping only once I climbed into bed, defeated and dreading starting all over again the next day. I had been plagued by a particularly bothersome high school assignment for my least favourite subject, biology. It was the early noughties, and my household had no internet access; our only reference books comprised an outdated encyclopedia collection that pre-dated World War I. I particularly remember the intense dismay I felt at the knowledge that I wouldn't be able to play my recently acquired copy of  The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time that night.

'That constant humiliation to survive. If you're not angry, what kind of person are you?' – Ken Loach, director I've tried not to dwell on my time on the welfare system, which remains one of the darkest points in my life. However, even though I've now been in full-time employment as a copyeditor for around two and a half years, the spectre of unemployment hangs over me. Working at a small but busy company that has previously let go of a coworker due to financial strain and knowing talented, hardworking individuals who have met the same fate, the prospect of being made redundant is never far from my mind. As my time after graduation has shown me, sometimes one's best efforts don't count for much.

I recently read an article about "imposter syndrome" and recognized myself within it. Imposter syndrome is basically the feeling of being inadequate, in spite of evidence of high achievement; it leaves people afraid that they will be "found out" and exposed as frauds in their field. I've felt this way...

Three stories up. Unforgiving concrete below. My heart was hammering in my throat as I swung my leg over the balustrade of the balcony, and I froze, suddenly and acutely aware that dying was a possibility if I messed this up. But I had to get out of the house. Everything I wanted was out of the house. I simply couldn’t stay in the house any longer. Climbing from my balcony to my next door neighbour’s balcony was the only way out, since there was a party in the street below and many guests had parked their motorbikes and were sitting at tables right outside my front door. I didn’t know how long the party was going to continue. Eyeing the celebrations below me, I wondered how traumatic it might be for the guests if a phalang (foreigner) suddenly crashed their party—literally.