What Da Cover Says: Decimalization, dole queues and The Troubles in Northern Ireland brought home to a Clydebank tenement. Teenage Chaz Sweeney seizes the chance to get out and make a name for himself as a big man.
Angela, aged Her mum can’t protect her. Her only friends Pizza Face (Chaz’s brother) and Evan are like older brothers, but they can’t protect her either…Chaz is too big and they’re too small.
In fantasy and fairy tales they look for a way to escape the everyday horrors they face…To give them hope of a normal life.
Beastie lays bare the brutal reality of Poverty and Social and Economic deprivation of 1970s Scotland.
What I Says: Oh man! This is a gem of a book, so many times now I have been lucky enough to read a book that has yet to have been picked up by the rest of the world and I am left stunned that so many are missing out on something so great. I wouldn’t say Beastie was a “joy” to read, every other page my heart was being torn apart by the life of poor little Angela and her friends/guardian angels Pizza Face and Evan but I loved every page. The villains left me using some of the local dialect in rage each time they got away with something, so proper emotional story telling here. haha.
I wasn’t raised in Scotland but so many of the things the kids did in this book seemed to have been taken from my childhood, collecting bottles to get 10p for their return, finding a mucky mag and boasting about what we’d do, the game of kicking a ball against the curb (which we imaginatively called curb ball) and the mighty penny sweeties. As for the dialogue, short, sharp and fun, local dialect is heavily used which makes it all the more enjoyable and far easier to follow than expected.
Without giving much away this was one of the hardest books I’ve read, due to work I have had to do a lot of safeguarding training and this shows why, poor Angela tries to get help, she hints again and again at what she was going through but everybody just turns a blind eye, it was quite shocking to read about what things were like way back then. Whilst this is classed as fiction it feels very real.
The current runner for my book of 2024, don’t miss out, get a copy of this and experience a book like no other.
Gnome Appreciation Society 