The cover for Dawn O’Porter’s Paper Aeroplanes, designed by Jet Purdie. Photo credit: Hot Key Books
For a number of years, Paper Aeroplanes has been stored at the back of my mind, and I have been hunting for it since. I found it a few days ago, and read it in a day. Dawn O’Porter’s brilliant, true-to-life take on teenage friendship and relationships is mesmerising for, according to Caroline Flack, ‘anyone who has ever been a teenage girl’.
Guernsey, 1994. Fifteen-year-old schoolgirls Renee Sargent and Flo Parrot are not meant to be friends. Thoughtful, introspective Flo couldn’t be more different from extroverted, sexually curious Renee. But what they have in common runs deep. Loneliness, frustration and the longing for escape from their dysfunctional families joins them together in a bond that cannot be broken: the bond of female friendship.
That’s the blurb. It’s a story that involves many different plotlines, and you want to scream at some of the characters, which is always good. It made me laugh and cry all at the same time, and then I just came back for more and laughed and cried again. I haven’t read a novel like this in a while. I seriously recommend picking it up: it even has a sequel, and two more in the series to come, apparently.
Dawn O’Porter is a presenter on many documentaries covering topics like geishas, polygamy and the film Dirty Dancing. She is married to Irish actor Chris O’Dowd (The IT Crowd, Bridesmaids). Dawn’s books are brilliant.
Featured image courtesy of The Telegraph.
Teenage Wasteland 