Half a World Away: The heart-warming, heart-breaking Richard and Judy Book Club selection

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One pinballs from placement to placement before finally growing up in a care home. A rough start in life, a need to fend for herself and eventually, a determination to ‘make good’. Kerry lives a humble but happy life as the single mother of her son, Kian, in a west London council estate, working hard as a cleaner.

I enjoyed this story and the escapism of it, it is a little repetitive and predictable in places but overall a nice cozy story. I listened to this one on audible and the narrators were excellent. Trigger warnings: May contain spoilers. Select from here cancer, death, adoption to here to see list of trigger warnings. Half a World Away follows the heartbreaking story of two siblings, Kerry and Noah, who are taken into care and live very different lives. What an involving, captivating, heart-rending story. Some books fade from the memory but I know I'm never going to forget these characters - they feel like my own family. -- Jill Mansell Amy and Louis is told beautifully in two ways. There’s the rhythmical, repeating language which shows the reader the special friendship between the pair in a minimum of words. Then there’s the illustrations, which focus on red, blue and neutrals to create the magical world which the pair have created in their friendship. I particularly love how the illustrations show the difference between the suburban world in Australia and the frantic, busy world Amy moves to (which I assume is New York)

It isn't easy, it is heart-wrenching, but, oh, is it worth reading. I can't recommend this book highly enough.' Vine

The other is adopted aged 2.5 and raised by a loving, wealthy white middle class family and eventually becomes a successful criminal barrister. Noah lives with his wife and daughter in Primrose Hill. Kerry Hayes is a single mum, living on a tough south London estate. She provides for her son by cleaning houses she could never hope to afford. Taken into care as a child, Kerry cannot ever forget her past.Jaden didn’t even answer. He couldn’t sit on a side. Period. “I won’t ride in the car anymore,” he said. “I’ll ride my bicycle everywhere.” He felt bitterness well up inside himself, moving up from his stomach to his mouth, and he gagged slightly. He knew he was overreacting, but he couldn’t help it.

The differences between Noah and Kerry are stark. He is wealthy, has been privately educated, studied at University and dresses well. She left care at eighteen and went spectacularly off the rails and now cleans large houses owned by wealthy people to put food on the table for her and Kian. Rather than their differences pushing them further apart Mike Gayle uses them to bring Noah and Kerry together. It would have been easy to have Noah pity Kerry, to see her as a project or something he can fix, but in actual fact, he admires her tenacity and slowly, slowly, sees that they have similarities. Steve had just gotten home from work, so he was wearing a suit and tie. His suits were all slightly too small because he’d gained weight recently. “I hear you didn’t go to school. Whatcha been up to all day?” Steve asked Jaden. Steve and Penni met eyes again. Penni turned all the way around. “Jaden, it’s just that Steve read an article saying the baby seat should be in the middle. Okay?”

Everyone is talking about this quite tearful read Half A World Away by Mike Gayle, anyone with the love of good books can see why everyone is talking this story. Heartbreaking and wonderful, a beautiful book about the power of love to surmount almost anything. -- Julie Cohen He closed his eyes and stayed very still, concentrating on his electricity. He could feel a slight tingling in his hands. He hadn’t even known what electricity was when he was first adopted from Romania four years earlier. In Romania he’d lived in four different group homes, and none of them had electricity. This is a beautiful, beautiful book. It’s about family, about class, about love, about choices and sacrifice. It’s about letting go and learning to hold on. It’s optimistic and heartbreaking and funny and emotional. It’s the kind of book that will stay with you, long after you finish it. Buy it, read it, love it – and hang on to those tissues, you’ll need them.’ Netgalley

Anyway, here he was at twelve, and now his adoptive so-called parents were adopting another child, a baby boy from Kazakhstan. He figured he knew why they were adopting again: They weren’t satisfied with him. Whenever he thought that, he felt tears welling up. He didn’t know if he was upset for himself, because they weren’t satisfied with him, or for the baby, because if the baby was up for adoption, it meant the mother had abandoned him, and Jaden knew what that was like. Thomas Edison had called electricity “a system of vibrations.” Jaden loved Thomas Edison. Edison had more than a thousand US patents. He had invented things left and right. Jaden wouldn’t hate life like he often did, if only he could invent that much.

Multibuys

So this was all Steve’s idea. Jaden didn’t answer. He shook off the bitterness and stared out the side window at the rain falling hard on front lawns, at porch lamps lighting up the houses. It was hard to believe that this lit-up neighborhood existed on the same planet that he’d lived on before. If—if—he decided to go to college, he would study electricity, which he’d done a science project on at school. He’d hooked up a cocoon so that a tiny light would go on every time the future moth moved inside the cocoon. Then, when it was born, a bell would ring. He’d gotten his only A ever on that project. He didn’t get an A for the class, though. He got a C. That was because the only thing that interested him was electricity. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, I love Mike Gayle’s writing. I’ve been a huge fan ever since I read his first book in the late 1990s and have eagerly awaited every new release since. Half A World Away his latest book is a warm, beautiful and compelling read which I devoured in two sittings and it did not disappoint. This story is raw and beautiful and sad. It puts lots of things into perspective and makes you think about what is important in life. Beautifully written, easy to read and will certainly bring tears to your eyes. A must read.’ Netgalley I also used to live in Manchester — another great city (although technically I lived in Salford which is next door but that’s sort of splitting hairs).