Loverboy

This book very adeptly walks the fine line between romance and reality, avoiding unconvincingly neat endings and forays into sentimentality. Alfie wants to go along the road his friends are travelling, which ends with a partner, but the path is far from straightforward, and his progress is hindered at every turn. The biggest problems are his lack of belief in himself and the paucity of his experience in affairs of the heart.

He and Maya have always been the best of friends, but when his insecurities cause him to fail to respond to her tentative romantic overtures, she finds a boyfriend elsewhere. He flails around desperately in his friendship group, but all his attempts at romance are thwarted and he retreats from his friends in despair. His low spirits make him vulnerable, and he is soon thinking about his absent mother who left when he was very young in the grip of drug addiction. His Nan, with whom he lives, has been communicating with her as she is now clean, but Alfie’s feelings of anger and abandonment have prevented him from building bridges with her and agreeing to meet.

Loverboy oozes authenticity through its convincing teenage dialogue and accurately and sensitively chronicles such issues as self-esteem, sexuality and the complexities of school and family life. Young adult readers will immediately empathise with Alfie and his inability to move forwards in his life and will him on to a solution to his problems. Tomlinson has a sure touch when exploring the thoughts and emotions of young male teenage characters and this is a reassuring and empowering facet of the book.

I thoroughly enjoyed watching Alfie grow, slowly and surely, learning to overcome obstacles of his own and others’ making along the way. The narrative feels like real life and the young people it introduces become familiar and engrossing in their own right, as well as through their connections with Alfie. These characters do not exist in a bubble: Tomlinson makes adults a credible part of the picture, exploring the pitfalls and rewards of parent/child interactions and ensuring that adults are far from stereotypical creations.

Loverboy would be a valuable addition to school libraries and reading groups as it lays bare teenage preoccupations, worries and pleasures and offers young readers a real opportunity to hold a mirror up to themselves and not come away dismayed.