True Love by Paddy Crewe

 

True Love

 by Paddy Crewe

True love by Paddy Crewe was published on 4th July 2024 by DoubleDay. . My thanks to the author and the publisher for sending me a copy to review and to Random Things Tours for inviting me on the tour.

Synopsis

What does it mean to love and be loved?

It is the 1980s and Finn and Keely are growing up in the North East of England.

KEELY is a fighter. Even in the face of loss she strives to seek connection, but finds that she’s not always searching in the right places.

FINN is quiet, sensitive, distant. He spends much of his time alone, yet deep down he wants to discover the thrill of relating to others.

When the two finally meet, everything is changed. Love – with all of its attendant joys and costs – is thrust upon them, and each must decide if they will bend or break under its pressure.

True Love is a story of the trials of youth, the bonds of family and friendship, and of how much we are willing to risk to have ourselves be seen.

My Review

True Love has to be one of the most emotively raw books I have read since reading Kes by Barry Hines. Keely and Finn’s emotions and characters are explored and discussed in infinite detail in all their raw state for the reader to take and build their personas from. 

From the very first instance of seeing the cover photograph I could tell this was going to be a book that would be no holds barred at describing the lives and feelings of these two individuals who were destined to meet and unravel , and make sense, of what life had given them without destroying what could be.

For me True Love is the type of book that I have been waiting a long time to come across and read with its openness ,and in some ways naivety , of how he displays the characters and the tragedies that life has thrown their way and consequently how they deal with them.

Like I said earlier it reminds me of the style of writing of Barry Hines with Kes and those of you have read this book will possibly feel the same. Characters like Keely and Finn and their families are taken from the working class era I grew up in where life was often about surviving and children were often forced before their time to earn a wage through necessity.

Paddy Crewe draws you into the lives of Keely and Finn through his “telling it as it is approach” and consequently creates what I call a black and white novel with no colour to brighten up the lives of the two strong individuals. Children were brought up, or brought themselves up,  in these environments and life was harsh as they learnt how to survive.

This is a book that should find itself on recommended reading lists for schools and colleges as there is a lot to be discussed and thought about  from these incredibly well written 309 pages. I have put Paddy Crewe on my watch out for list of up and coming new authors and I hope we’ll be hearing a lot more from  him in the  very near future.

About the Author

Paddy Crewe was born in Middlesborough and studied at Goldsmiths. His debut novel, My Name Is Yip, has been shortlisted for the Betty Trask, the Wilbur Smith, a South Bank Sky Arts Award and The Author’s Club First Novel Award, and longlisted for the Walter Scott Prize.