This is a beautifully written evocation of childhood and friendship and the key moments and experiences that define a life. Ideal, perhaps for readers who enjoy intricate stories that plot every moment of a life. Unfortunately, that is not me. Ishiguro's writing is tender and delicately observed but I got a little too lost in the detail. Not for me, but will find plenty of readers who fall in love with it for precisely those characteristics, I'm sure.

Whilst many readers may stumble on this book when looking for the next offering by the author's famous father (as I did), her style is different from his and her work should be judged in her own right. The elder Ishiguro's books tend to have a vagueness and delicacy about them - which can be seen as a positive or negative quality depending on your reading preferences - which is not the case here.

'Common Ground' is a story primarily about friendship, and about discrimination. It features Traveller characters and gives some insight into the Traveller community - a community that I've read very little about, despite being an interesting culture and with lots of scope for good stories given the difficulties they face in UK society. It's a fascinating topic and I'm surprised, on reflection, that there aren't more books about it. There are plenty of stories about other cultures facing a difficulties when living in the UK, and yet Tavellers face just as many issues - and some unique issues - but you don't see them often in literature. As such it's a good idea for a novel.

The novel is split into two parts. In the first, set in the early 2000s, two teenage boys make friends when they meet by chance on a bike ride. Stan, the younger, is bookish and lonely, bullied at a new school and unhappy at home after the death of his father. Charlie appears to be everything Stan isn't - confident, tough and streetwise, but clearly clever and with a curiosity and love of trivia that suggests the two have more in common than their circumstances might at first suggests. However Stan gradually learns that Charlie's Traveller family are victims of prejudice and that in turn, he isn't necessarily welcome in their world. The second part is around ten years later, when the boys meet again by chance in London and find the gulf between them brought about by their cultures is much greater. Stan wants to help Charlie - who has fallen on hard times - but is his help really what Charlie needs?

The book raises interesting questions and certainly made me think about the difficulties faced by Traveller families and how the whole structure of modern society is constructed in a way that makes their lifestyle very difficult to carry on. I'd have liked to have had even more insight into the lives of the Traveller characters, because I find their culture interesting and like any culture, the more people can understand about it, the better everyone is likely to get along.

It's often an extremely uncomfortable book to read - I'd get to points where I had to pause before carrying on because I felt that so acutely, which is very unusual for me. That suggests it must be very effectively written. Readers who have experienced bullying at school or racism may find it 'triggering' and so should consider if they wish to read. It also doesn't pull punches - there aren't pretty fairy tale outcomes here.

I do feel it's a bit overwritten i.e. overly wordy in places. It's one of those books where you have to resist the urge to skim some of the longer sections of internal monologue. But it picks up pace in the sections with dialogue. It's also not always an enjoyable read - so if you're in mood for something more fun and escapist, it's not the right choice. But when you do want to read something more challenging about important and painful issues, it's worth it, particularly for its depiction of a group often neglected in literature.

Thanks so much to Headline for letting me read Naomi Ishiguro's Common Ground in advance. I requested this one on a bit of a whim, and it probably shows - it wasn't a book that I hugely connected with, although I did enjoy it.

Common Ground is about Stan, a thirteen-year-old getting bullied at his posh new school. On the common, he meets Charlie - who's older, cooler, more confident, and also a member of a Traveller community. This is a book primarily about friendship, as well as dealing with racism and navigating difficult circumstances. Although I read this book really quickly - enjoying the insight into the Traveller community and the exploration of male friendship - there wasn't a lot about this book that I found particularly memorable. Personally I felt like I needed more substance and more structure, but plenty of early reviewers have disagreed - so if this a book you're interested in reading, I'd recommend checking it out for yourself.

Common Ground is a supeb novel and a must read for 2021. Following in the footsteps of recent excellent books such as Andrew O’Hagans Mayflies comes a great story of male friendship across the ages. This story is between Stan and Charlie, who meet on the Common. They come from different backgrounds but a strong friendship is formed.

The book addresses family, loyalty and standing by your friends. The boys differences is a constant challenge throughout the novel but one that is constantly overcome, with the reader willing them on. The dynamic between the two makes for excellent reading and there is an infection buzz that surronds the novel whatever is going on. A really excellent novel and I look forward to reading more from this author in the future.

Common Ground tells the story of Stan and Charlie. They meet one evening my chance on their local common. Stan is 13 years old and dealing with his fathers recent death and repeated bullying at his new school. Charlie is 16 and seems to have it all sorted and Stan looks up to him. One evening there is an accident and the consequences of that lead to Charlie and Stan losing contact.
They meet again nearly 10 years later where Stan is got it together, studying for an MA and mixing it arty circles. Charlie on the other hand is struggling with alcohol after his wife lost a baby and a job he hates.
The back drop to all this is that Charlie comes from the Gypsy/Traveller community and Stan sees first hand the inequalities and prejudice he faces as a result. At different points in their life their friendship seems to save them.
I loved this book. The characters are so well written and flawed yet likeable. I was
rooting for their friendship throughout

I found this book heart rending, hard to read at times, heartbreaking and utterly utterly grim and dispiriting. Not that it’s written badly, the story can be quite sharply poetical at times, but I just found myself getting increasingly low in spirits. The characters feel real and larger than life and you just are invested in them. I did love it but it’s a hard one because it has all these emotions rising to the surface. It’s sharp, brutal yet it’s full of so much heart.

Commom Ground follows the friendship between two boys who meet one afternoon on the common of a small Surrey town.. Thirteen-year-old scholarship boy Stanley races off after school every day, escaping the constant bullying by his snobbish schoolmates. When the chain comes off Stanley's second-hand bike, Charlie steps in to help. Older and decidedly cooler, Charlie’s a Traveller who introduces Stanley to an entirely different way of life from the one he knows at home. Stanley can’t help but romanticise what he sees as a warm welcoming family so different from the quiet desperation of his own widowed mother. Almost a decade after they first met, their paths cross again: Stanley is now a confident young man, and it’s Charlie who’s beset by troubles, reeling from crisis to crisis.

The central theme of Naomi Ishiguro’s debut is one close to my own heart: there’s almost always common ground to be found between us no matter how different we are. There's much to enjoy in her novel but, at over four hundred pages, it's too long for me.

I loved Naomi and I loved this. I couldn’t put it down. It was a complete pleasure from beginning to end. Amazing