Challenging but beautiful.

Explores the lives of drug addicted youth in Bristol in the 80s. 

I gave this book 3 stars but I would have probably rated it better had I read it when I was a teenager (I think it's perfect for teens between 14 and 19).
It started kinda slow and I gotta say I disliked Gemma a great deal, couldn't relate to her, while I related to Nico and thought he should be protected at all cost. Melvin Burgess did a great job writing complex characters and turning things around (at least for me) and, by the end of the story, Gemma's character arc was inspiring and I ended up being very proud of her. Nico indeed suffered from prior, serious issues, so it's logical that his path went differently. It was sad but it wasn't surprising, even though I was rooting for him until the very last chapters...
The moment I started not being able to wait before picking up the book  was around the middle of the story, when the subject of heroin is introduced and it just gets grimmer and grimmer. From that moment on, it was a real page-turner with powerful writing, until the very end (Nico's father's chapter stirred me).
I loved that the story covered the before, during and the after of heroin addiction, without going - I think - overboard, nor glossing over dark themes.

One of the most real feeling books I've ever read. Not even in the subject matter so much as the characters who are complicated and flawed and easy to hate yet impossible not to root for. Everything about this book was unexpected and hard hitting, and there was something so refreshing in its utter refusal to shy away from difficult subjects and show them as they are, rather than in the neat recovery arcs with a side serving of moral didacticism. The characters and their journeys speak for themselves, ultimately exploring the way, no matter how hard we try, we fail to be different from our parents. A tough read but a good one.