Jake and Alex have been friends since they were little. They used to do everything together: skateboarding, sleeping over at each other’s houses and sharing silly jokes and secrets. Ellie is a newcomer to the school. Although first discovered by Jake, she’s become Alex’s girlfriend. But something awful has happened, something the boys did together, that caused a man’s death. The resulting fear of being caught, and the burden of a deep secret guilt, slowly tears the young people’s relationships apart.

The author takes the unusual approach of telling the tale backwards. The book begins at the end of the story, and slowly the clock is rewound back to the moment when the tragedy began. So the reader knows from the start that the boys are guilty, but we don’t know how or when or why. What we do know is that the boys’ guilt affects everything they do: their home life, their schoolwork, their behaviour and, sadly, their friendship.

The reader then becomes infected with the same sense of ‘if only’ that plagues the boys. We grow to care about them and, just like Ellie, we wish they could be honest with themselves and each other. We all have moments in our lives that we wish we could have handled differently. The tragedy is that, now everything has changed, we must live with the consequences. You won’t want to put this book down.

Reviewed by Wendy Noble

Age Guide 12+