Junk

LoveReading Says

When it was published in 1996 it created a Storm of Protest - especially from those who didn't bother to read it. The book, however, is credible, honest, realistic, moving and sympathetic - not to drug taking, but to some of the reasons for it and how the young fall into it and then, with luck and a bit of help, get themselves out of it.  Junk not for the faint-hearted for it is utterly compelling and terrifying by turns – from bliss through to complete despair we see all manner of emotions that at times will make you feel utterly drained.  It’s a real roller-coaster and yet it is completely honest and real to today’s world.  Controversy has always gone where this book has gone for it’s hard-hitting approach to the subjects of drink, of drugs and of sex.  Junk is an absolute must-read for any teenager and an essential eye-opener to any parent of a teenager.

Winner of the Carnegie Medal 1996 and the Guardian Children’s Fiction Prize

A Note from the Author, Melvin Burgess  This book is set roughly in the early and middle 1980s, when I myself was living in Bristol. All the major events have happened, are happening and will no doubt continue to happen. I saw many of them myself and heard about many more. As for the people here . . . some are pure invention, some are seeded from real people and then fictionalised, some are fictitious with bits of real people stirred in. The only proper portrait is Richard, one of the nicest and strangest people I’ve ever met, who is beyond praise or prosecution, bless him. He died on the motorway some years ago. The book isn’t fact; it isn’t even faction. But it’s all true, every word.

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