By Meg Rosoff (author)
"Summer love, lust and loyalties tangle in this piercingly powerful coming-of-age story"
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Shortlisted for the YA Book Prize 2021 | Shortlisted for the Costa Children's Book Award 2020 | July 2020 Book of the Month
With characteristic vision and grace Meg Rosoff has done it again in this exquisite novel that merits a place alongside I Capture the Castle , Bonjour Tristesse and The Lost Estate (Le Grand Meaulnes) for its coming-of-age, loss-of-innocence excellence. Though contemporary, it feels timeless and elementally affecting, much like the Great Godden’s impact on the family whose story it tells.
With an idyllic seaside summer stretching ahead, the tingling anticipation of The Great Godden’s unnamed teenage narrator is deliciously palpable: “This year is going to be the best ever: the best weather, the best food, the best fun. The actors assembled, the summer begins.” But there are still two more actors to take to the stage - enter the Godden brothers in a shiny black car.
The narrator’s older sister Mattie is immediately smitten by magnetic, handsome, self-assured Kit: “She was desperate to lose her virginity, and what sort of person would say no to Mattie? Surely not some movie star’s kid, fresh off the plane?” Though Mattie is certainly attractive, it’s obvious that charmer Kit has the upper hand of any situation, but might he also be a trouble-maker, as his curt, less-of-a-looker brother warns?
Such wonderings underpin some of this novel’s essence. With the stage fully set and summer speeding towards the climax of a wedding, it poses fundamental questions about motivation, and the nature of agency, of lust, of the desire to be seen for who you are. Quivering with unease, passion and paranoia, it also reveals how past experiences engrave themselves upon us, creating fault-lines that may crack and cause future ructions.
Sophisticated, seductive and smoothly readable, this is a summer story par excellence, and a coming-of-age tale for all times.
Find out more about the YA Book Prize including all the shortlisted titles.
This is the story of one family, one dreamy summer - the summer when everything changes.
Read the full description
In a holiday house by the sea, in a big, messy family, one teenager watches as brothers and sisters, parents and older cousins fill hot days with wine and games and planning a wedding.
Enter the Goddens - irresistible, charming, languidly sexy Kit and surly, silent Hugo. Suddenly there's a serpent in this paradise - and the consequences will be devastating.
From bestselling, award-winning author Meg Rosoff comes a lyrical and quintessential coming-of-age tale - a summer book that's as heady, timeless and irresistible as Bonjour Tristesse and I Capture the Castle but as sharp and fresh as Normal People.
"A wonderful, captivating writer" - Daily Telegraph
"Meg Rosoff has the gift of being able to talk to the reader with a directness that goes like an arrow to the heart" - The Times
Meg Rosoff worked in publishing, journalism, politics and advertising before writing How I Live Now . Her books have won or been shortlisted for 18 international book prizes, including the Carnegie Medal and the Orange First Novel Prize, and been translated into over 20 languages. In 2016, Meg was the recipient of the prestigious Astrid Lindgren Memorial Award, the world’s largest children’s literature award. She lives in London with her family and two dogs.
Click here to read a Q&A with the author's Good Dog McTavish .
Click here to read more about Meg Rosoff.
Photo credit Gloria Hamlyn
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This is the story of one family, one dreamy summer - the summer when everything changes. In a holiday house by the sea, in a big, messy family, one teenager watches as brothers and sisters, parents and older cousins fill hot days with wine and games and planning a wedding.
The LoveReading4Kids Editorial Team have read and reviewed The Great Godden and determined it is suitable for children aged 15-18 years old
The Great Godden features in the following genres: Books of the Month, Recommendations, Stories about Family and Friends, Children's and Young Adult Fiction, Children’s, Teenage and Educational, PSHE: Sexuality, Gender and Relationships, Personal Social Health Economic (PSHE), Romance / Relationship Stories, Star Books, Featured Books for Young Adults
Paperback, , Hardback. £7.19, down from the £7.99 cover price. In Stock.
The Great Godden was written by Meg Rosoff and published by Bloomsbury YA an imprint of Bloomsbury Publishing PLC
The Great Godden has 257 pages
£7.19, reduced from £7.99. In Stock.
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