The Gone Book

I know you’ll hate me. I just know you will. But I can’t help it. I’m going to find you.Matt’s mam left home when he was 10. He writes letters to her but doesn’t send them. He keeps them in his Gone Book, which he hides in his room. Five years of letters about his life. Five years of hurt.Matt’s dad won’t talk about her. His older brother is mixed up with drugs and messing with dangerous characters. His friends, Mikey and Anna, are the best thing in his life, but Matt keeps pushing them away.All Matt wants to do is skate, surf, and forget. But now his mam is back in town and Matt knows he needs to find her, to finally deliver the truth.

Winner of White Raven Award 2021 Short-listed for An Post Irish Book Awards: Dept 51 @ Eason Teen and Young Adult Book of the Year 2020 Short-listed for Biennial Literacy Association of Ireland Young Adult Book Award 2021 2021 Nominated for Carnegie Medal 2021

Dark and gritty and desperately sad and wildly funny, this is as real as writing gets. I was locked inside of Matt's head for the duration, and I lived his whole mad summer. Every line rings perfectly true.

A skillful and truthful novel from a wonderful storyteller.

Achingly sad but hugely funny. A gritty story full of heart.

 "I would highly recommend this book. It’s a chaotic read, full of twists and turns. It is gritty and realistic, and highlights the anguish of an absent parent and the strife of teenage friendships."

"A heart-wrenching, hard punching, insightful narrative of life in modern Ireland."

"This taut, emotionally authentic story told from Matt’s naturally flowing first-person perspective features raw, sometimes uncomfortable, language and complex characterization and offers no easy answers."

Limerick City native Helena Close has been writing full-time for 20 years. She has written or co-written seven novels, published by Hodder Headline (under the pseudonym Sarah O’Brien), Hachette Ireland and Blackstaff Press. The Gone Book is her first young adult novel.

‘Extraordinary, a remarkable book that expands the frontiers of Irish popular fiction.’ – The Irish Times (for The Cut of Love)

‘An impressive, relevant, and entertaining read. An absolute page turner.’ – The Irish Independent (for The Clever One)

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