The Year Without Michael

Jody's 13-year-old brother, Michael, sets off to visit a friend and is never seen again. The impact of his disappearance on his family is nakedly communicated - the more powerfully for an unsensational approach. The well-meaning but painful questioning from friends and relatives is a constant re-opening of the wound of grief, and Jody, her sister and their parents react to the stresses and uncertainties in a variety of ways, all self-destructive. There are no easy answers, no miracle reappearance, yet the book sustains interest in a character who appears for two pages at the very beginning. It gives a bleak and honest picture of the breakdown of a family under extreme stress. It will, sadly, strike many chords in adolescent hearts but will provide the comfort of a trauma re-enacted in print.