Such a fantastic novel, Grow deals with such hard issues including grooming & racism which makes it hard to read sometimes. Josh is such a vulnerable character, but his story gets under your skin and makes you want to keep reading more because you really want things to get better for him.

Grow is a stunning debut that hits hard. It deals with very topical societal issues such as radicalisation and how extremists target the vulnerable, just like the young guy in this story who is struggling with grief.

3.5 stars.
This is a tough book to read. It deals with racism, ntolerance, child grooming, far right groups, rape, grief and loss, single parent families, terrorism, and guilt.
This also could have been so much more.
It was set up to be a dark gritty rabbit hole of violence and intolerance but it tended to just hover over the surface and for me, that's where it let me down.
It follows a Josh, a boy who has absorbed himself into his school work and is getting brilliant results, after his father was killed in a London train bombing by terrorism.
He seems to be sought out by a far right hate group after being introduced by a couple of other boys in school who show him videos on their phone of the hatred and violence they get up to.
So begins the grooming of Josh and the befriending and brain washing that leaves you feeling that this is probably how things actually happen and how vulnerability leads to anger and hatred in the wrong hands.
It was a very quick read and I loved pretty much every character that was put on the page. I liked how Ahmed was so similar to Josh, to imprint on the reader how we are all the same and we all suffer loss in life, and in fact some are far worse than others and being from another country/ different classes/ being a different skin tone/ speaking with a different accent/ a religion or not makes no difference to the fact that everybody hurts or loves or gets angry during childhood if only you took the time to talk to each other.
The book was very well written and was a very quick read but I wanted more. I felt that it wasn't gritty enough.

Grow is a fantastic book. Although dealing with complicated adult concepts of grooming, extremism and racism, Palmer manages to weave a believable narrative that will engage teenage audiences. He allows the reader to at times sympathize with Josh and at others be repulsed by his actions. Palmer's prose is keen, reflecting the inner turmoil of Josh as he deals with grief, teenage angst, first love and anger. The current divisiveness of the UK with increased nationalism and fear promoted by far right groups is tackled unflinchingly and makes Grow a book that should be recommended to all, especially teenage boys. At the heart of the novel is the theme of love and how this needs to be cherished and recognised for the good that this can do, both on the intimate family level and on the wider national scale. Ultimately, Josh discovers that the past is part of him but he is the only one who can define his future life by making informed decisions.
A brilliant read that has plenty of social commentary and enough action, twists and turns to keep all readers satisfied.

I knew that this book would give me a tough time when I read the synopsis and oh wow, it did!

Josh is a popular 15-year-old who loves playing football but all of that changes when his dad dies in a terrorist attack in London. Suddenly, he withdraws from life and struggles to cope with the devastating hole that has been left behind. But then, a group of white supremacists see him as the perfect new recruit and he can’t seem to find the strength to veer away from these views that he knows really aren’t his own.

I can’t imagine trying to put your life together after losing a loved one in the way that Josh lost his dad. The fact that the event is so publicly talked about and how the rest of the world somehow manages to move on and yet the families left behind just have to watch this ‘recovery’ process. It’s a pain that so few of us can ever fathom and yet it’s reality for an increasing number of people, as more horrific attacks happen.

After two years, Josh and his mum have learned to get though their days with the simple motto of ‘it is what it is’. During the scenes with Josh and his mum where they’re simply whiling away hours watching films before sloping off to their bedrooms, there was such an immense weight hanging over them. Their whole house is seeping with sadness and you can tell that they’re simply going through the motions.

Of course, when Josh eventually goes back to school, he is treated differently by his friends and teachers. I imagine it would be exactly like this. A strange dark cloud surrounding him that everyone is scared to look at or interact with. It’s very easy to see how Josh could retreat even further into himself. One of the only exceptions to this awkward avoidance of Josh is his old football friend Jamie, who tries his best to maintain that friendship. Jamie is probably one of my favourite characters in the book because he’s so wonderfully loyal and thoughtful. I found myself trying to push Josh towards him, when the danger started creeping in.

One of the things that really enraged me was the tactics that the supremacists used to try and get Josh on board. They leaned on the intense emotional crutch that was his father’s death to recruit him to their disgusting way of thinking. I had to put the book down several times because I got too angry. Although I hated the way it made me feel, I guess it’s testament to great writing that it evoked such a real, powerful emotion.

When Josh finds himself in the secret room of a pub, full of these dangerous men, he meets an older man called Dan. Dan is an incredibly lonely, sad man who has been taken in by the charismatic Carl, simply because Carl listens to him and pays him some attention, which is something that no one else has done for him before. It’s not too hard to wonder whether that’s the case for many members of these Far Right/Alt-Right groups. Perhaps they are all full of incredibly vulnerable people who will latch on to anyone who makes them feel seen and heard. This is exactly how cults work and what are these groups if not that?

Josh grows close to Dana, the violent, manipulative Carl’s girlfriend. We only get glimpses into what her life is really like but it sounds horrific. Carl is a lot older than her and her mother is very supportive of this illegal, vomit-inducing situation. I spent most of the narrative hoping that Dana was smart enough and brave enough to escape it but I knew it was going to be incredibly tough for her. Something about the atmosphere of the book made me scared that she wasn’t going to come out of things well, so I was very viscerally afraid for her. Please be aware of trigger warnings for sexual abuse in this thread of the book.

Josh’s grandparents are incredibly smart and seemingly very liberal for older people. I loved them so much and much like Jamie, I really wanted Josh to spend more time with them. His grandad in particular seems to be keeping his eye on Josh as much as he can and does his best to nurture his grandson. Grandad is very keen on gardening and growing things, so I imagine this links in nicely with wanting to grow a beautiful person from his teenage grandson.

Ahmed is a new boy at Josh’s school. He is a Syrian refugee and during the indoctrination process, Josh is incredibly rude to him. He realises that this isn’t exactly how he feels and he is able to have some really sweet moments with Ahmed, where they get along great. Ahmed knows that Josh’s heart really isn’t in this radicalisation game too, which is why he feels safe opening up to him. Much like with Dana, I was worried that things wouldn’t end well for Ahmed. For most of the book, there was a sense of foreboding that something hugely terrible was going to happen and it made for a very unsettling read.

Grow is a heart-wrenching, enraging book that really buries its way into your soul and squeezes. I did throw it around a lot because some of the comments made by some of the characters made me feel physically sick. To see how easy it is to indoctrinate vulnerable young people into these groups is a really scary thing but I think it’s important that this exact demographic sees it. By reading about and being able to identify the tactics that these people use to grow their following, hopefully they’ll be able to avoid it.

It's been 2 years since Josh's dad was killed by a terrorist bombing on the train and seems to be coming back from the loneliness of grief. That is when he is approached by a white supremacist group. What will he do?

A sharp, full of edges narrative, where the protagonist is telling us his pain-tinged story. Emphasis on small details evokes so many emotions and gives us a clear picture of what is going on. The figurative speech compliments the protagonist by being intelligent and presenting such original, forceful and unconventional images. The dialogue is in your face honest.

I really like how it depicts Josh and his mother's grief. How it is palpable and seeps into all facets of feeling and being. Grief is different but relatable to everyone.

Different beliefs battle in the protagonist's head. The racism feels like a slithering, festering beast bulging with excuses and so-called justifications. This story digs deep and is brutal to read in parts. The manipulation is frightening. Will something good or bad grow from this situation? Will Josh succumb to the pressure or save the day.?

Some of the descriptions of events or surroundings are a bit longwinded or/and they feel like fillers. In some parts it's good that it is not a loud narrative, but I think in other parts it needed to be. I needed a little more oomph, especially in the conclusion.

This is a compelling, poignant study on human nature at its worst and at its best.

Wow! Starts a little slow, but just keeps getting better! A fantastic book - really enjoyed the story, and by the middle couldn’t put it down until I saw how it ended! Great read!!!!

This book broke my heart and challenged me in so many ways!

It shows the grief and vulnerability of someone and the truest, rawest representation of how easily it Is for a teenager to become stuck in a spiral and how they can slip through the threads of society without anyone realising before it's too late.

Although the story was heartbreaking, I loved how Luke managed to grip the reader straight into Josh's world and represent his character, grief and raw vulnerability. Although I had to put the book to the side at times due to its nature, I always picked it back up, ready to follow Josh on his journey.

As a whole, this book is very raw but teaches a lesson that I feel all teenagers should know more about.

The story was well written. It touches on a very harrowing, very real topic. I could feel the fear of the characters as well as my own. I felt captivated by the narrative and even shed a few tears.

This book has a really important main story line about a teenage boy being groomed by a white supremacist group following the death of his father, who died in an Islamist terrorist bombing on the London Underground.

I found this quite a difficult book to read. Not because of the writing but because of the subject matter. I needed to stop half way and then regain my reading. When an author is able to make you stop reading because it is uncomfortable, you know they have done something right.
I managed to get myself back into the book, I trusted the author would allow the story to have a happy ending, and I am so glad I persisted in the reading of this. It is exactly what it says in the title. It allows its readers to grow. To understand the hate that can build when we have not the right support or nurturing or long held misbeliefs fo the world, due to circumstances.
While I found it challenging to read, I do believe that this book needs to be read by many people far and wide, from any age because anger and hate can grow from a feeling of not being seen.
I applaud the author.

There are a growing number of books exploring race and racism and/or extremism. For the most part, these are set in fairly multi-cultural areas and tell the stories at those suffering from prejudice, from racist behaviour and attitudes. And rightly so - they are important stories which need to be heard.

However, I was intrigued by this one coming at the issue from a slightly different angle. Set in a predominantly white British area, Grow is Josh's story. Struggling to cope after his dad's death in a terrorist attack, he finds himself targeted by white supremacists and is slowly sucked into a terrifying world of bullying, intimidation and fear.

The characters were really well drawn and I thought the way we are able to gradually learn more about their backgrounds and individual stories was so skilfully done, and so much of this opened up a plethora of other discussions and themes too.

At no point do you feel for the white supremacists targeting Josh, but the book does allow us to consider what has brought them to this point.

Likewise, Dana's story is so hard to read, but so important and so sensitively told - both implicit and hard-hitting at the same time. The way it ties into the main plot works well too.

This was a really compelling but difficult read; there were so many points at which I was desperate for Josh to realise what's going on/do something about it but it's all too clear he won't/can't because of how angry or scared or stuck or ashamed he feels.

Indeed, Josh's emotions were brilliantly depicted and never has the phrase emotional roller-coaster felt so apt.

On the surface Josh is coping well with his dad's death, but underneath the grief is still raw and he's unable to process it. Easily turned to anger and blame, we see him spiral through negative emotions which are fuel to the white supremacists' grooming fire.

His growing realisation that what he's involved with is wrong is perhaps the hardest to read - the sense of having nowhere to turn, of desperately wanting it to stop but feeling powerless and/or too scared to try to stop it.

And with good reason - there is real menace from the gang he finds himself caught up with, and the way they find a way into Josh's life is insidious - it's clear to see just how easy it is for this sort of thing to happen.

This is a bit pf a slow burner, but it's characters are deep and the plot believable because of it. There's a great twist at the end too. While I did see it coming, it took me a long time and I thought it was clever and brings an added level of tension to the closing chapters.

I also really liked the way nature and growth were used, through Dana and Josh's Grandad's gardening, both symbolically to reflect Josh's journey, but also for the wider message of the benefits nature and the outdoors can have.

Overall, this is a moving book that will make you think. With themes of grief, loss, mental health, racism and pressure as well as thought-provoking social commentary, it's one that should have a place in every secondary school library.

A good read, not a favourite though. I loved the plot of the story as terrorist attacks were a very common thing a few years ago and the fear the character felt could be recognised very well