And the Stars Were Burning Brightly by Danielle Jawando

Reviewer: Catriona Troth

What We Thought of It:

Nate’s big brother, Al, had so much to look forward to. He was a straight-A student, a talented artist, and had a conditional place at Cambridge University. So when he commits suicide, Nate, and his whole family, feel as though they have been shattered into pieces.

Nate is consumed with finding out why Al took his own life, even though his quest takes him into some increasingly dark places and everyone – even his mum and his older brother Saul – are begging his to stop.

The only other person who seems to understand is Megan, a friend of Al’s who shares Nate’s guilt for not doing enough to help Al when they still could.

And The Stars Were Burning Brightly shows, with deep compassion, how suicide, especially unexplained suicide, tears a hole through the hearts of friends and family. Nate is an utterly believable character; it is impossible to read this and not care about him deeply. Al too comes to vivid life on the page, despite the fact he dies three days before the story opens.

Jawando brilliantly captures the way that social media can come to dominate the lives of young people: from unrealistic body images it portrays, to the compulsion to share every minute of every day, the constant intrusion of notifications – and above all the savage cruelty that at times it unleashes and enables.

Yet the author also shows how the internet allows voices to be raised up and shared across the world.

And the Stars Were Burning Brightly is an extraordinary book that highlights the appalling and relentless pressures that can be piled onto teenagers in this age of social media. It comes as no surprise to learn that the novel is based in part on the author’s own lived experience.

I can imagine this book might be triggering for some, but for others, it may well help ease them through a difficult time, or to understand friends who are in a difficult place and need their support. It needs to be in every school library.

Shortlisted for the inaugural Jhalak Young Adult and Children’s Prize.

You’ll Enjoy This If You Loved: The Million Pieces of Neena Gill by Emma Smith Barton; Out of Heart by Irfan Master, Meat Market by Juno Dawson

Avoid If you Dislike: References to suicide and online bullying

Perfect Accompaniment: Images of the night sky 

Genre: Young Adult, Contemporary

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Adults in the Room, by Yanis Varoufakis

Reviewer: JJ Marsh

What we thought:

This reminded me of Hillary Mantel's Wolf Hall. It's not historical or fiction, but it contains all the intrigue and political machinations to be found in the court of Henry VIII. Yet the tyrant at the heart of this story is no capricious king who reforms history to suit himself. The ruthless creature wrecking lives and crushing countries is a many-headed Hydra formed by self-interested individuals colluding in maintaining the status quo.

It's rare to find a non-fiction book about contemporary politics and economic imbalance that is so fascinating you cannot wait to read what happens next. But Adults in the Room is just such a thing. We know what happens in the end, which gives it a tang of classic tragedy, but still it is impossible not to hope.

Yanis Varoufakis is an economist academic and left-wing politician, who served briefly under the Greek Syriza government as Minster for Finance. His brief was to renegotiate the crippling debt Greece owed the troika - the European Central Bank, the International Monetary Fund and the European Commission.

His ideas are clearly stated, his ambitious plan to get Greece out of a debt spiral that would damage Europe as a whole is coherent, and his habit of recording in detail every conversation and meeting provides for an alternately thrilling and appalling insight as to what goes on behind institutional doors.

Finally, Greece put a question to its people - more austerity or a different approach? Yes or No?

If you have concerns about the state of the world, its institutions, bankers, politicians and media, you should read this book. Then you will appreciate why the only people to blame are those who parrot such phrases as "Too big to fail" and throw their shoulders to a wheel they know will inevitably come off.

You'll enjoy this if you like: Economic analyses, politics, the writings of George Monbiot, or Charles H. Ferguson's film Inside Job.

Avoid if you dislike: Europe, finance, thinking.

Ideal accompaniments: A plate of assorted pickles, a crystal-clear glass of ouzo to which you gradually add water, and Lost in the Stars by Kurt Weill

Genre: Non-fiction

Available on Amazon