There was a lot like that I liked about this book. The imaginative slightly-futuristic Birmingham (a city I'm familiar with in the present day), the multicultural and very grounded cast, the sense of post-pandemic realness that was truly well thought-out... I found myself turning the pages, intrigued to see where the story went.

Sadly I soon found myself pulled out of key moments because of the language. So many words meant nothing to me, and didn't even come up on a quick Google search. Is this a 'Clockwork Orange' Nadsat technique, to indicate the slang of the 'youth of today' in the world of the book? I'm not sure, but all is did was made me feel as if I - as a middle-aged white woman - wasn't the intended audience. Some of it is (perhaps?) contemporary slang, or it could be part of Future-Brum, but while I could gauge meaning from context, it distanced me from the action and left me frustrated.

A good book for a younger audience, to my disappointment.