Awards
- Long-listed for BASH (Book Awards St Helen's) 2017 (UK)
- Long-listed for BASH (Book Awards St Helen’s) 2017 (UK)
- Long-listed for Redbridge Children's Book Award 2016 (UK)
- Long-listed for Redbridge Children’s Book Award 2016 (UK)
- Short-listed for The People's Book Prize 2016 (UK)
- Short-listed for The People’s Book Prize 2016 (UK)
- Short-listed for YA Book Prize 2016
Overview
Katie only meets her Grandmother Mary for the first time when she is seventeen and by that point Mary is almost completely lost to dementia. And as her only living relatives, Katie’s small broken family are forced to care for her. Katie can see something in her — a spark that she’s missing in her own life — but her mother Caroline — Mary’s own daughter — hates her. But why? As time goes on snippets of Mary’s life are revealed to Katie during her brief moments of lucidity and a long kept family secret is at last revealed. Unbecoming celebrates life in a way no other book has done before. The difficulties of dealing with dementia are expertly placed alongside teenage angst and single motherhood and though many issues are tackled this is not an issue book, it is a book to love.
Full Product Details
Author: Jenny Downham
Publisher: David Fickling Books
Imprint: David Fickling Books
Dimensions:
Width: 12.90cm
, Height: 2.70cm
, Length: 19.80cm
Weight: 0.309kg
ISBN: 9781910989029
ISBN 10: 1910989029
Pages: 448
Publication Date: 26 May 2016
Recommended Age: From 12 to 18 years
Audience:
Young adult
,
Teenage / Young adult
Format: Paperback
Publisher's Status: Active
Availability: Temporarily unavailable
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Reviews
This life-affirming story about a complicated family . . . is stunningly told * The Times Children's Book of the Week * This is a beautifully drawn portrait of three generations of women, hugely ambitious in its interwoven examination of sexual identity, family secrets, torn loyalties, family secrets, torn loyalties and the life-affirming power of breaking away from suffocating conventions * Daily Mail * This moving tale of three generations of women shouldn't be missed * Closer *
Author Information
Jenny Downham trained as an actor and worked in community theatre for many years, using improvisation techniques to take stories to young people who wouldn't normally have access to them - in prisons, hospitals, youth clubs, housing estates, anywhere that theatre rarely existed - she spent many years putting herself in imaginary situations and playing all sorts of people she would never normally be cast as. It was a perfect apprenticeship for writing. Her first novel, Before I Die, is an international bestseller. It won the Branford Boase Award for most promising debut, the Australian Silver Inky Award for best international novel, was shortlisted for the Guardian Children's Fiction Prize and was made into the blockbuster film, Now Is Good. Jenny's second book, You Against Me, won the inaugural Waterstones Teenage Book Prize, and Unbecoming, was shortlisted for the YA Book Prize and won the Stonewall Honor Award from the American Library Association. Jenny is also the author of the critically acclaimed Furious Thing, a powerful novel about emotional abuse and coercive control. Jenny lives in London.
