Falling Fast

When River goes with her classmates to the local boys’ school to audition for the joint year 6 production of Romeo and Juliet, she hopes to be chosen for Juliet. Instead she has to be content with the Nurse. But, at the rehearsals, she falls heavily for Flynn, the brilliant, charismatic, brooding Romeo. As in the play, the path of true love does not run smoothly, but the difficulty comes not from the violent clash of rival families but from River and Flynn’s own insecurity and vulnerability. Told by River, this is a convincing tale of teen love grounded in a world of family, school and friends. Sex is a part of this, too; taken in her stride by Emma, River’s flirtatious friend, but approached rather more circumspectly by River herself. In what appears to be the first in a series of books to follow Flynn’s fortunes, Sophie McKenzie engages her readers immediately with her characters and illustrates the intensity of their feelings through River’s empathetic quotations from Shakespeare’s play. The circumstances of the lovers’ meeting may well be familiar to some readers who go to single sex schools and the play may be familiar to more, through GCSE study at least. Perhaps some readers who do not know the play may even be moved enough by McKenzie’s modern version to feel that Shakespeare still has something relevant to say to them.