The party was being given by a girl at school, and in recognition of the shortage of available males we had all been instructed to “bring a boy. Overall I really enjoyed it and would recommend it if you’re looking for a read that will take you back to navigating teenage friendships and family life. Of course, this probably made the book more romantic but I think it could have been just as good as story with less extraordinary drama. What a carefully constructed and powerfully balanced novel this is: at the end I was descending the same steps I had walked up at the start.

It’s a tribute to the butterfly effect - what major consequences and echoes can be produced by a series of minor events in the past.As she becomes more deeply enmeshed within the Radley family, things take an unfortunate turn coinciding with a shocking discovery about her own family.

Payments made using National Book Tokens are processed by National Book Tokens Ltd, and you can read their Terms and Conditions here. I'm deducting half a star because Abigail's mother wasn't entirely consistent- but maybe she just naturally mellowed with age? A pointless tragedy and exile to Australia dealt with two of them, while the others managed happy endings. She studied English at Oxford and spent the year after graduating in New Zealand, where she wrote her first novel, Uncertain Terms, published when she was 25. On the other hand certain episodes seemed unlikely to me, even for the Radleys, in particular the scene which causes Rad to be so angry with Abigail.

Raised in a very conservative household, only child Abigail lives out a dull life with Mother and Father in suburbia filled with net curtains and clipped lawns. Hotjar sets this cookie to know whether a user is included in the data sampling defined by the site's daily session limit. And very few of them are spared, since this is also a paean to youthful stupidity and inexperience and inattentive parenting.