Cuckoo in the Nest
Book description
'Fresh, authentic and darkly funny. It's a beautifully told story full of warmth and emotion without ever being sentimental - I absolutely loved it' Ruth Hogan, bestselling author of The Keeper of Lost Things
It’s the heatwave summer of 1976 and 14-year-old would be poet Jackie Chadwick is newly fostered…
Why read it?
3 authors picked Cuckoo in the Nest as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?
I simply loved this book. It took me straight back to the long, hot summer of 1976 and to the confusing feelings around being a teenager. The smell of phone boxes, flares, awful hair – it was all there.
The main character, a 14-year-old would-be poet, has lost her mother and is living with her alcoholic father. She’s an attractive and engaging character, and when she was fostered by a local family, I assumed her life would get better. Not the case. The teenage daughter loathes her, and there are more secrets in this respectable family than in her own.…
From Ruth's list on books you read and re-read even though you know every word by heart.
The book is excellently written and very readable. Fran Hill seems to speak from experience.
The book is about fourteen-year-old Jacky, who barely survives under the ‘care’ of her dissolute alcoholic father. So, Social Services move her to a first-time foster family. Their daughter, Amanda, of similar age, resents Jacky’s presence and does her level best to get rid of her.
Ostensibly innocuous actions and remarks vividly reveal the character and feelings of the clashing teenagers and their far-from-innocent parents. Not all the loose ends are tied, but I felt drawn into the complicated family atmosphere and enjoyed discovering their…
This quirky debut novel features one of my favourite ever heroines.
Fourteen-year-old Jackie is a funny, feisty would-be poet, who finds herself a fish out of water when she's placed with a foster family very different from her own, with a teenage daughter who hates her. It's set in 1970s England, when I was the same age as Jackie is, so it was a lovely nostalgic read.
It's based on the author's own experience of being fostered, and knowing that made the story even more poignant - it made me laugh and cry.
From Frances' list on quirky heroines.
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