Pages´s Pages

PAUL MENDEZ Rainbow Milk (Dialogue Books). This is a debut novel but it reads like a pro. Rainbow Milk is an intersectional coming-of-age story, following 19-year-old Jesse McCarthy, brought up as a Jehovah’s Witness with the legacies of the Windrush generation, as he struggles with racial and sexual identities. It’s also a seriously good read about what it means to be black, gay, British, sexual, male, Midlander, you name it, Mendez holds it up to light and peels them layers back. His prose is cool, slippery and cuts clean to the quick. He takes you to places unfamiliar and confusing and with a sentence connects you to the core of the character’s mind. It’s a fast ride in an astonishingly cool car. We follow the stories of exboxer Norman Alonso, a determined Jamaican who moved to 1950s Britain with his wife to secure a brighter future. Blighted with illness and racism, they are resilient in the face of hostilities, but know they will need more than just hope to survive. As the millennium turns, Jesse seeks a fresh start in London – escaping from an awkward family and a repressive religious community, he finds himself grappling for a new anchor. He turns to sex work to create new notions of love, fatherhood and spirituality. It’s how Mendez explores the maze of desire, need and honesty which is so ravishingly honest and challenging. He writes a pretty hot erotic narrative, which explodes with urgent desire off the pages, they sizzle. His sensual explorations of flesh and desire are mixed together with withering condemnations of British imperialist ideology, folded in with tender reflections on parenting and what it means to be young, queer and black in the UK today. Recommended.

WILLIAM HUSSEY Hideous Beauty (Usborne Publishing). Dylan is forced to come out after his secret relationship with Ellis is exposed on social media, but everyone is really supportive - or appears to be. But Dylan's and El's happiness is short-lived, following a tragic accident, Dylan begins to realise how little he knows about the boy he loves or those closest to him. Hussey is an awardwinning author of books for young adults and this sparkling love story, which is wrapped in a dark textured Gothic mystery, has a really beautiful truth at its core. Even in a cruel world, love can win through and first love is a seriously special thing worth cherishing. It’s this which brings this book up into the light and Hussey has done a great job of making the narrative engaging enough and interesting enough to be able to hold what is quite a shocking narrative, and allow the character to develop as the mystery unfolds. Using the mental tribulations of Dylan as he seeks to understand what happened, deal with his grief and search for some kind of acceptance and his own authentic place in the world. Hussey's crisp fresh prose is a delight, not a fat word in there, it’s lean, swift and the narrative gallops along at a giddy speed. It’s a thumping great read for younger people and leads us, and Dylan, out of the dark places and into a space which is perhaps more difficult to live in, but makes far more sense in the end.

JUSTIN MYERS The Magnificent Sons (Piatkus). What a lovely book, Myers’ second novel just unfolded on my lap into something really special. Like a queer picnic filled with lots of lovely tasty bits and pieces, all crafted with care, jostling and shoving, a cacophony of sibling rivalry, poly sexuality, queerness and everyday problems which are shaken out into a narrative which weaves a story of brothers Trick and Jake and how when one comes out it affects how the older, apparently straight brother’s feelings about his life, girlfriend, distant family connections and what it means to be free. As Jake explores his bisexuality, a world is opened up to him which required sacrifice and hard choices. Myers is a master with his prose, it’s funny, sharp and he can throw a one liner at a bullseye in the dark. The books reads itself and along with his development of fun characters, each odd but believable, it’s a coming of age novel with a vein of wisdom running though it. Myers’ observations of life and relationships gives an authentic everyday feeling to Jake’s tentative explorations of what and who he really is.

SARAH HAGGER-HOLT Nothing Ever Happens Here (Usborne Publishing). “This is Littlehaven. Nothing ever happens here.” Izzy’s family is under the spotlight when her dad comes out as Danielle, a trans woman. Izzy is terrified her family will be torn apart. Will her parents break up? And what will people at school say? Izzy’s always been shy, but now all eyes are on her. Can she face her fears and stand up for what’s right? This book is a much needed story - a gentle, perceptive, honest exploitation of transitioning and family life which explores relationships and change in a genuine way. It’s a direct and accessible narrative which inspires discussion and acceptance and allows us to see, from Izzy’s perspective, how her parents’ transition plays out. It’s not sensationalist and gives families an opportunity to understand the everyday feelings explored here. Hagger-Holt’s prose gives us a family struggling against the prejudices of society which sees transition as an issue, problem or threat. Izzy and her parents’ life goes on, shopping, schooling, the ordinary happens all around them. There’s real warmth in the trans characters in this book, real people, living