SuitabookHelping others versus accepting help
Aideen creates a favour-for-favour service for fellow students while her own home life and schoolwork deteriorate.
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Book details
Ciara Smyth - Author
A lively, first-person school story combines farcical problem-solving and slow-burn romance with serious family instability. Its emotional centre is Aideen’s habit of helping others while struggling to address her own circumstances.
Book Brief
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Sign in for personalised guidanceA lively, first-person school story combines farcical problem-solving and slow-burn romance with serious family instability. Its emotional centre is Aideen’s habit of helping others while struggling to address her own circumstances.
Aideen creates a favour-for-favour service for fellow students while her own home life and schoolwork deteriorate.
Aideen lives with the effects of her mother’s alcoholism and an unreliable relationship with her father, while fearing further disruption.
Aideen is openly lesbian; her friendship with Holly becomes strained while her connection with Maebh develops, alongside Irish, Polish and Indian cultural details.
Before choosing it, consider whether the reader would welcome depictions of alcoholism, an alcoholic parent, child neglect, poverty, bullying, underage drinking and a deliberately injurious act between students.
This is a grounded book brief while Suitabook strengthens the analysis: the book’s treatment of its main themes is not yet firm enough; some draft conclusions still depend on unresolved evidence.
Anything not established here remains open; it is not being treated as absent or safe.
These links show the original reading lists. Inclusion is not a guarantee of suitability for your child.