Ten-year-old Finn, a quirky, sensitive boy who talks a lot and only eats at cafes with a 5-star hygiene rating, is having a tough time at school and home.
Outspoken Kaz, 59, who has an acerbic sense of humour and a heart of gold, is working at the café when Finn and his mum come in.
They don't know it yet, but the second time they meet will be a moment which changes both of their lives forever . . .***
[My name is Finn, as in Huckleberry, and there is nothing wrong with me]***
(@QuercusBooks, 5 March 2020, 400 pages, paperback, #ARC from @AmazonUK #AmazonVine)
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I need lot of hugs and some chocolate and an electric blanket and a giant box of hankies after reading this. Finn and Kaz reduced me to a gibbering wreck. They are both great characters, so brilliantly rendered they were like real people to me. Finn is wonderfully complex character, bullied because he's sensitive and likes Alan Titchmarsh. He's having a bad time at school and at home because his parent's marriage is falling apart at the seams. Finn has a great relationship with his Mum who completely gets him. Finn has some social issues and his father refuses to accept or try to understand this and spends all his energy telling Finn and his soon-to-be ex-wife that he just needs to toughen up. Kaz is also a great character, very real, working in a café to make ends meet and caring for her schizophrenic brother Terry. Their lives are thrown into turmoil when he's declared fit for work. Lives are changed forever when Finn and Kaz meet. This is one of the saddest, moving and most beautiful books I've read in ages. Especially when things take a dark turn towards the end. This will haunt me for a long time.
