Max Porter is one of the few authors I will preorder as soon as I hear about a book coming out from them, and this didn’t disappoint.

Set in the mid 90s the story of a young man, Shy, who has gone down a road of anger and disruption with his life lived in a series of highs and lows without him seeming to have much control over his thought or emotions.

Raw and harrowing set to a pace akin to the music that is referenced throughout, we’re taken into the mind and world of Shy, Max uses different forms of text to mark time and beat. Poetry, formatting, concrete areas, separate tones, separate thoughts, past and present are all mixed together deftly as an MC would, layering it to produce a coherent whole at a breakneck speed.

Shy eventually inhabits a space called “Last Chance”, a school for troubled teens, set in the countryside (middle of nowhere) and full of similar kids and staff who want to help (do gooders) and his thoughts start to feed in on themselves with what could be an expected solution though the end is exciting and so fast it had to be read twice and closely to get the best out of it.

As an aside I worked in a similar space as a do gooder for about 28 years and could see similar process going through young mens minds at the time, taken out of their home environment and suddenly in a place that is so quiet that they have no option but to listen to their inner voices.

Another excellent book from Max and glad I finally got around to reading it.