Made in Britain follows three young protagonists who are growing up fast in an unspecified Northern town in Britain. It is a short snapshot of their lives. The three characters are in that GCSE final year at the same school – they know each other and have wildly different feelings for each other. They are each on the cusp of adulthood and all have their own problems to deal with at home and in their social lives. The backdrop of the book affects the reader as well as the characters. The local and national news are awash with a spate of killings in the area – gang related they say. Our characters happen to chance across one of the bodies, headless and in a ditch. The area is rife with cheap drink, drugs of all flavours and most of all a sense of failure that covers the book and the fictional town like a blanket. Our young characters are growing into their parents, who in their eyes have failed.

This is a dark novel, a disturbing novel but one that sets you thinking and stays with you after reading. The length of the book is short, making for a one or two session read which again makes its punch all the more clear. Prince Charles, that lover of Burnley, would do well to read this.

And what about our characters? Do we feel for them or relate to them? Yes we do but they are wildly different from each other. The main story hangs around Charlie – clever, streetwise, over sexed, as hard as nails and respected for it, drug user and seller. His motives and his actions however betray a deeper sense of right and wrong. People from the school and the area want to be, or be with Charlie. We are invited as readers to work out what we think of him, how we would feel and what is likely to happen to him.

Next we have Russell. Russell has something wrong with him though it is not specified what – Asperger’s syndrome / AHD. A medical person or one with experience of such matters may find it obvious but I did not. As such he has social problems, he is bullied and he is lacking in street sense and doesn’t yet know how to approach girls, or how to go about life in general. His mother is a problem. She emotionally blackmails him into not leaving home when clearly he needs to. More importantly she offers no support to him and, according to Russell, does not care about what he does as long as he stays home.

And lastly we have Haley. Haley, bless, is not very bright and makes some incredibly bad relationship and life choices. For one she fixates on Charlie. More importantly she has a fling with her teacher in the vain hope that this will help with her GCSE grades – it does not. Haley’s mum died and her dad works long hours to support her. They are both grieving still. Haley’s friends are selfish and unsupportive.

The book plays out from each of the character’s point of view. The three relate the events from their own point of view, much of the action being left to us to work though. This is the power of the prose and why the story stays with us – we are transported back to being sixteen and to have those mixed up emotions, mostly about sex. The characters meet each other we get to know what they think of each other. Charlie thinks Haley is posh and aloof when actually she fancies him and is nervous. Charlie, we find, is a protector of Russell and has been since nursery.

There are no great shocks and revelations – we are kept in the know enough to work out what is coming. Just three kids growing up fast in some northern town. But it is haunting.

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