What I Was

An extraordinary story of a powerful teenage friendship that crosses all bariers. A lonely boy trying to manage the containing conversion of his boarding school meets Finn living alone in a hut near the shore. How the two build a relationship that is so important to each, despite knowing so little about each other, is wholly captivating. Once again, Meg Rossoff who has already won prizes for How I Live Now and Just In Case seems able to inhabit a teenager's mind.

'I'd been kicked out of two boarding schools and the last thing I wanted was to be here, on the East Anglian coast, in a third. But without St. Oswald's, I would not have discovered the fisherman's hut with its roaring fire, its striped blankets, its sea monster stew. Without St. Oswald's, I would not have met the boy with the beautiful eyes, the flickering half-smile, and no past. Without St. Oswald's, I would not have met Finn. And without Finn, there would be no story. Shall we begin?'