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by Helena Close
Hard-hitting urban drama about friendship, family and loss from the author of Things I Know.
Matt's mom left home when he was 10. He writes letters to her but doesn't send them. He keeps them in his Gone Book, which he hides in his room. Five years of letters about his life. Five years of hurt. Matt's dad won't talk about her. His older brother is mixed up with drugs and messing with dangerous characters. His friends, Mikey and Anna, are the best thing in his life, but Matt keeps pushing them away. All Matt wants to do is skate, surf, and forget. But now his mom is back in town and Matt knows he needs to find her, to finally deliver the truth.
"[A] taut, emotionally authentic story ... Powerful." —Kirkus Reviews (starred review)
"Dark and gritty and desperately sad and wildly funny, this is as real as writing gets. I was locked inside of Matt's head for the duration, and I lived his whole mad summer. Every line rings perfectly true." —Donal Ryan, author of The Spinning Heart
"A skillful and truthful novel from a wonderful storyteller." —Joseph O'Connor, author of My Father's House
This information about The Gone Book was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
Helena Close is a native of Limerick City in Ireland. She has been writing full-time for over 20 years. She has written or co-written eight novels, published by Hodder Headline, Hachette Ireland, Little Island and Blackstaff Press. She is rugby obsessed, and she loves cats and dogs and sometimes people.
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