Solace of the Road
Siobhan Dowd
|
Omniscore:
|
| Classification |
Fiction |
| Genre |
Children's & Teenage |
| Format |
Hardback |
| Pages |
272 |
| RRP |
£10.99 |
| Date of Publication |
February 2009 |
| ISBN |
978-0385609715 |
| Publisher |
David Fickling Books |
| |
Memories of Mum are the only thing that make Holly Hogan happy. She hates her foster family with their too-nice ways and their false sympathy. And she hates her life, her stupid school and the way everyone is always on at her. Then she finds the wig, and everything changes. Wearing the long, flowing blonde locks she feels transformed. She's not Holly any more, she's Solace: the girl with the slinkster walk and the super-sharp talk. She's older, more confident - the kind of girl who can walk right out of her humdrum life, hitch to Ireland and find her mum. The kind of girl who can face the world head on. So begins a bittersweet, and sometimes hilarious journey as Solace swaggers and Holly tiptoes across England and through memory, discovering her true self, and unlocking the secrets of her past.
Recommended for ages 12+.
Reviews
The Guardian
Frank Cottrell Boyce
"Dowd's glittering career fits more or less into the fearful gap between diagnosis and death. Here's a story about a journey which is equally fearful but which turns out to be worth it, thanks, as Holly says, to people who "did something to help me and asked for nothing back". This is a book which, despite its grim-sounding subject, turns out to be about the graces we gain when we just set out on the journey, and about good will which is the means of that grace and, which - to quote Cormac McCarthy - has the power "to heal men and bring them to safety long after all other resources are exhausted.""
14/03/2009
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The Independent
Nicholas Tucker
"For readers more at ease with awkward reality than sentimentality, Solace of the Road has a lot to offer. Its picture of social workers is broadly sympathetic rather than the usual caricature, and Holly's acid tongue provides moments of grim amusement. Creating the characters Holly meets in just a few words, quickly conjuring up the urban scenery, expertly flitting between past and present, Siobhan Dowd meets every challenge with the authority of a born writer taken from us too soon."
06/02/2009
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The Scotsman
Jane Sandell
"Holly/Solace is a fascinating character, full of contradictions, self-denial and thinly disguised fear. Dowd's bullseye portrayal of a young woman at odds with herself and the world around her is heart-rending."
04/04/2009
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The Daily Telegraph
Viven Hamilton
"This is an edge-of-the-seat read, as we know what terrible danger Holly/Solace is in and how close things come to tragedy. The sad truth of the story is that Holly’s mother is more dangerous than the rich variety of strangers she encounters. This gritty, realistic novel, which deploys Dowd’s talent for humour, will appeal to the older teenage reader."
19/03/2009
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The Sunday Times
Nicolette Jones
"This page-turner invests mundane experience and everyday language with the resonance of poetry. Its last line quotes Holly's friend who dreamt of being a catwalk model: ‘It's like walking up to heaven, Holly, without having to die first.' This, and the thought that there was no more of Dowd's work to read, brought a lump to the throat."
01/02/2009
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The Times
Amanda Craig
"Dowd writes with economy, sympathy and an unflagging perceptiveness about the human condition; Holly's odyssey could have been far more harrowing than Dowd's first novel, about teen pregnancy, but becomes something unexpectedly life-affirming, wise and mature."
20/03/2009
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The Observer
Lisa Kelly
"Dowd writes with economy, wit and sympathy, turning Holly's potentially traumatic odyssey into a moving journey of self-discovery."
12/04/2009
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