One of my great heroes was George Orwell who had this thing about writing politics and that has the potential to be a very boring subject. However, Orwell wrote about it so simply that you could understand it if you were 12 years old. He taught me the truth: there is no such thing as difficult ideas, there's only badly expressed ideas. And if you write it well and clearly and simply, it's understandable – and I truly believe that."

Listen. You can be anything you want to be. Be careful. It's a spell. It's magic. Listen to the words. You can be anything, you can do anything, you can be anything, you can do anything. Listen to the magic. Another was a guy called Mervyn Peake. Do you know Gormenghast?" I say no. "Oh, you should read Gormenghast. I've been praising truthful, simple things and Gormenghast is a fantasy written in a very Gothic style, with these long, gorgeous sentences, which just land on a sixpence. It was a character-driven fantasy and there's just nothing like it." That question always comes up when the American Library Association announces the latest banned or challenged books in school libraries. Most of the time, it concerns sexuality, bad language, violence or politically motivated messages. But this is teenage health and wellbeing potentially at risk. Sadly he was a completely different person at the end of the book and that's the harsh reality of his lifestyle.This article's plot summary may be too long or excessively detailed. Please help improve it by removing unnecessary details and making it more concise. ( June 2021) ( Learn how and when to remove this template message) Lily - a fifteen-year old heroin addict who takes a liking to Gemma. She grew up in the care system and it is hinted that she, too, suffered abuse.

Richard invites Tar to go to Asia with him to get him out of that drugscene but Tar doesn't want to run away because he is quite satisfied with his life and the success he has as a dealer. Gemma thinks so too in the beginning, because she earns a lot of money in the parlour and she would like to tell her parents how well she does but she doesn't dare to. Although she phones them sometimes she can not go home until she is clean.

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Richard - an anarchist and left-wing activist who helps Gemma and Tar find somewhere to live. He is in his twenties. Gemma gets more and more in conflict with Vonny who doesn`t like her arrongant punk stile either. She wants them to leave the squat after their house-warming party they have organised. This review contains some spoilers as I mention things that happen in the story to make some points Even peripheral characters like old codger Skolly or do-gooder Richard are nuanced, displaying both sympathetic quirks and hard-to-like weaknesses. Burgess skilfully uses first-person narrative to catch his characters in their lies and contradictions. It adds an important layer to what, at other times, feels like a straightforward teen novel. His real name is David, but everyone calls him Tar because he hated fags and refused to smoke any cigarettes.

The German writer, Brecht, did the same thing as Orwell in his poetry, which was to write really simple stuff in speech rhythms rather than poetic rhythms and it was very truthful. Not all of it but some of it." Synopsis: Gemma runs away from home because her parents are too strict, Tar runs away because his father hits him. Different reasons, but the same end result. They become addicted to heroine and will do anything to get a high. Over the span of five years we are taken through their lives and meet the same people that they do, from addicts to the few that want to help them.He was born in 1954 and brought up in Sussex and Berkshire. After leaving school he trained as a journalist but wasn`t satisfied with it. He moved to Bristol where he worked at occasional jobs mainly in the building industry or he was simply unemployed. Before he began to write full-time at the age of 35 he had a business marbling fabrics for the fashion industry. His first book "the Cry of the Wolfe" was published in 1990. My parents owned a good many books, and I was free to raid their shelves at will, so my reading ranged very widely when I was young. The only books I remember that I didn’t want my parents to know I was reading were rude books - pornography. People are still scared of that, even though it is so widely available over the internet now. But even then, I think that is as much because sex is such a very private activity, rather than a geuninely dangerous one. Should young people be allowed to read anything they want? Are there any books or subjects that you really do think teenagers should be prevented from reading about? The story is set in the 1980's and focuses on the problems of young runaways and the temptation of drugs, especially heroin. Tar and Gemma are only fourteen when they decide to run away from home; Tar has been physically abused whereas Gemma cannot put up with her parent’s strict rules anymore. The two end up in Bristol and befriend some people who believe in opening up squats in empty homes and peaceful protesting but ultimately the two get pulled away from these friends in want of more excitement and fall in with the destructive couple, Lily and Rob. There was plenty of character development in the story, considering the MCs use a whole bunch of heroin to effectively smoosh out any actually emotions they might be experiencing. Gemma is probably the best-developed character. She goes from this deeply irritating brat at the beginning of the book to a thoughtful, battle-scarred woman by the end. Tar doesn’t develop quite as much, but his reason for getting involved in heroin was to blank out his horrible home life, so I guess that makes sense. I only know that if I had read it when I was younger, maybe I wouldn’t have had the strength to say no when something was offered to me.