By Sera Milano (author)
"Hope, healing and humanity in the wake of a terrorist attack"
Paperback In Stock £7.99 £7.19
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Solidarity through struggling to survive. Community through catastrophe. Hope through heartache, and life after loss. Sera Milano’s searingly stirring This Can Never Not Be Real shows how the human spirit can endure the most horrific experiences, in this case a brutal terrorist act that turns a quiet community’s annual festival into a bloodbath.
Written from the viewpoints of five young characters in bursts of arresting first-person narratives (often just a single paragraph; at most a page or two), this is edge-of-your-seat-stuff with the power to grip even the most distracted of readers. Though written as the characters recount the horrifying events at an inquest, those events unfold before readers’ eyes with unflinching descriptions of the atrocious attack and its aftermath, and with tremendous tension - we don’t know how this will end, or who ends up surviving.
Threaded through with the characters’ overriding desire to support each other, and their will to survive, the novel makes important points about the incomprehensibility of such attacks - the “Why us?” question. As is often the case, such attacks could have happened someplace else, to other people.
The message of this book is that what really matters is how we come through such events, how we emerge in a spirit of love, with a greater appreciation of life. As such, This Can Never Not Be Real is as much a valuable tool for dealing with traumatic events as it is a brutally gripping, thought-provoking page-turner.
A compelling, heartbreaking and hopeful book for fans of Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine, Jennifer Niven and Holly Jackson.
Read the full description
In the unremarkable town of Amberside, the unthinkable has happened: Terrorists have attacked a local festival. No one knows why, and no one knows who the attackers are, but that doesn't matter. What matters first is survival. And what matters after that is survival, too.
Told in a bold style, This Can Never Not Be Real is utterly gripping from the first page to the last. It's a heart-in-mouth, heavy breathing, oh my gosh what's just happened, compulsive read that you will be racing to get to the end of. In a word, stunning. - George Lester, author of Boy Queen
'Five urgent voices, five lives dangling by a thread. A heart-in-the-mouth story about fighting for survival, the fragility of life, and finding love in the darkest places.' Finbar Hawkins
'A much-needed novel for our times that shows that no matter what horrors we might have to endure, we will always come out stronger...' Mel Darbon, author of Rosie Loves Jack
Sera Milano also writes as Birdie Milano. Before writing her first novel, Sera dabbled in the theatre, worked as a bookseller, taught drama classes for children, and dispensed romantic advice to internet daters. After earning a degree in creative writing at St Mary's University and taking Bath Spa's 'Writing for Children' MA, she published two books for younger readers under the name Birdie Milano. This Can Never Not Be Real is her first young adult novel.
The Gifts That Bind Us
Caroline O'Donoghue and 1 more
A compelling, heartbreaking and hopeful book for fans of Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine, Jennifer Niven and Holly Jackson. In the unremarkable town of Amberside, the unthinkable has happened: Terrorists have attacked a local festival.
The LoveReading4Kids Editorial Team have read and reviewed This Can Never Not Be Real and determined it is suitable for children aged 15-18 years old
This Can Never Not Be Real features in the following genres: Gritty Reads, Recommendations, Thrillers, Adventure Stories, Children's and Young Adult Fiction, Children’s, Teenage and Educational, Featured Books for Young Adults
Paperback. £7.19, down from the £7.99 cover price. In Stock.
This Can Never Not Be Real was written by Sera Milano and published by Farshore an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers
This Can Never Not Be Real has 340 pages
£7.19, reduced from £7.99. In Stock.
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