Starry Night

This Other Award winner is set in the rolling countryside on the border between Northern and Southern Ireland. The politics are there, as one might expect, but that is over-shadowed by the main theme, which is young Kathleen Fay's struggle to unravel the claustrophobic bonds that knit her large family together and the web of lies that they have woven to protect her from the truth. '...You can make your own life, or you can go around in a life someone has made up for you, off the peg.' Kathleen's discoveries about her own off-the-peg life make for a very worthwhile, penetrating read-mid/upper secondary.