Christmas raises the emotional stakes, especially if you take any notice of the world around you, and this year there are plenty of titles crying out to be packaged with a box of tissues and a slab of chocolate and savoured on the sofa on Boxing Day.
The Sun Is Also a Star by Nicola Yoon (Corgi £7.99) sees two young New Yorkers reaching for each other through a day of coincidences, near-misses and glimpses of their personal American dreams. Natasha is applying her scientific mind to efforts to halt her family’s imminent deportation to Jamaica; Daniel is a poet who struggles to satisfy his Korean parents’ ambitions for him.
Yoon’s detours into the lives of the other players in their drama, from the supporting cast to the walk-ons, to demonstrate the butterfly effect at play in their destiny. The sad-eyed security guard, the immigration lawyer’s secretary, the busker and the careless BMW driver are just a few of the contributors to the web of influences spun by the pulsating city.
Retuning to Natasha and Daniel’s moment-by-moment connection after one of the many narrative asides feels like coming home. As Natasha’s 10pm deadline looms you feel compelled to read more slowly to spend longer in the couple’s company. The Sun Is Also a Star repays a second read to ponder all the possible alternative endings, which might well require another box of tissues.
Save some for Instructions for a Second-Hand Heart by Tamsyn Murray (Usborne £6.99). A successful heart transplant seems to deliver a happy ending for Jonny but his long illness has left him estranged from healthy teenage society and his best friend is still dying. He forges a tentative relationship with his donor’s twin sister, Naimh, whose grief for her lost brother is complicated by guilt and resentment. Naimh’s family’s path through despair, her depression and the interventions of her well-meaning bossy friend are all sensitively drawn and there is room for reflection on what Jonny has given up to stay alive. Like Natasha and Daniel, Jonny and Naimh inspire confidence that they will overcome their obstacles; you would have to have a heart of stone not to root for them.
In the profound and touching Haunt Me by Liz Kessler (Orion £7.99), Erin and Joe face the biggest obstacle ever: Joe is already dead, and cannot leave Erin’s bedroom, which used to be his and which he also shares with a poltergeist. Joe’s brother Olly has been changed enough by Joe’s death to reach out to Erin, who is recovering from traumatic bullying. It’s hard to sum up the labyrinthine plot without spoiling it but it’s got a flavour of seasonal film offerings such as It’s a Wonderful Life.
The Deviants by CJ Skuse (Harlequin £7.99) is a tale of revenge, righteousness and recovery with a heart-stopping twist. While there is a key relationship (with an acute portrayal of sexual dynamics), the focus is on a different kind of love: the for-better-or-for-worse bond between a grown-up childhood gang in a picture-postcard town devoted to tourists with limited resources for resident teens. History, reputation and status are all hard to shake off whether you’re aligned with the town’s first family, the Rittmans, or outcasts like Fallon and her mum, Rosie. The Rittmans feel invincible to narrator Ella, whose boyfriend Max is the Rittman heir. Ella channels her anger at early abuse into sport and self-harm until the reconvening of the “Fearless Five” gives her a power surge. The bleakness of the ending is tempered with satisfaction at justice done.
The anthology I’ll Be Home for Christmas (Stripes £7.99) has social justice at its heart (proceeds go to homelessness charity Crisis), but is honest about the challenges that approaching the front door can mean for even those with a relatively secure home: Juno Dawson’s Duncan catching a train north to come out to his mum; Holly Bourne’s Mercedes clinging to a better-off boyfriend and doing homework in McDonald’s to avoid her stepfather; Cat Clarke’s Effie and her socially anxious mother finding peace at a waifs-and-strays Christmas gathering. Melvin Burgess delivers a Black Mirror-style dystopian tale of public family values while Lisa Williamson squashes myths about young homeless people in her account of Lauren, who might have served you in a sandwich bar before riding night buses until her next shift.
Beck, the titular mixed-race hero of the late Mal Peet’s Depression adventure, completed by Meg Rosoff (Walker £12.99), is born in 1907 and has lower expectations than Lauren at the age of 11, when he is sent to an orphanage in Liverpool before being exported to Canada as free farm labour. He survives multiple kinds of abuse and racism and follows an endless road which often appears to lead to a temporary home, finding just enough love on the way to make it possible to carry his home within himself. Like Natasha and Daniel, this is a hero that the reader is compelled to cheer on, while questioning how society is serving the lost Becks of today.
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