Joe Dunthorne Submarine Penguin Essentials)

'Excellent . . . the wonderful, Day-Glo certainties of adolescence have rarely been so brilliantly laid out' Independent on Sunday Meet Oliver Tate, fifteen years old. Convinced that his father is depressed ('Depression comes in bouts. Like boxing. Dad is in the blue corner') and his mother is having an affair with her capoeira teacher, ('a hippy-looking twonk'), he embarks on a hilariously misguided campaign to bring the family back together. Meanwhile, he is also trying to lose his virginity - before he turns sixteeen - to his pyromaniac girlfriend Jordana. Will Oliver succeed in either aim$197 Submerge yourself in Submarine and find out .

. . 'A richly amusing tale of mock GCSEs, sex, death and challenging vocabulary . . . Excruciatingly funny incidents and cracking gags' Time Out 'Perfectly pitched . . . transplants The Catcher in the Rye to south Wales . . .