Dreamland: An Evening Standard 'Best New Book' of 2021

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If you are an inveterate reader, the odds are good, better than good actually, that fellow readers or close friends (sometimes, happily, they are both) that at some point they will recommend a book to you. Chance’s life is filled with poverty, crime, drugs and fear – until she meets Franky, a girl unlike anyone else she knows. But theres also the novels prose its liquid grace and glinting sparkle and the sheer irresistibility of a narrative that sweeps along with a force that feels tidal in its pull.

Dreamland | New Humanist Book review: Dreamland | New Humanist

Books featuring dystopian or post-apocalyptic themes offer us an opportunity to study human nature outside of the normal structure of society, says Rosa Rankin-Gee, author of the acclaimed novel Dreamland. Our reviewer found it hard to imagine reading a better book this year after finishing the ­wonderfully ­entertaining and lucid account of how 10 key world regions are likely to shape our futures. It means that very formative part of my life is almost parked there, if that makes sense, like it waits for me when I go back, which can be haunting. Nuclear war devastates everything, apart from the isolated valley where a teenage girl lives with her family. When Alfred Hitchcock talked about creating suspense, he often used the analogy of “the bomb under the table”.If Dreamland is the future, and Rankin-Gee does make an alarming case for it being just that if current trends hold true, then many of us are in for a whole world of pain, especially those most at risk on society’s margins, but what’s important to note, and it finds buoyant liveliness in the person of Chance, is that even against something this nightmarish, hope and love might yet persist, testament if nothing else to the tenacity of the human spirit. In Margate, they find a flat and Jas gets a job at a pub, where seven-year-old Chance befriends Davey. In Chance, the novel’s protagonist, Rankin-Gee has created one of those characters that stays with the reader long after finishing the book. Daily Express 'Rankin-Gee's novel is a triumph, being as much a love letter to the heady ups and crashing lows of youthful entanglements as it is a paean to the former grandeur of its stark coastal setting. Turner found the light at Margate better than almost anywhere else while the town’s own Tracey Emin was influential in bringing the Turner Contemporary gallery to the town in 2011.

Dreamland by Rosa Rankin-Gee review – first love and rising

Reviews “Water courses through the novel’s page, but also its prose - its liquid grace and glinting sparkle – and the sheer irresistibility of a narrative that sweeps along with a force that feels tidal in its pull” The Observer “Enthralling… Blazing bright” The Guardian “Superb” New European “Shimmering” Mail on Sunday “A triumph, being as much a love letter to the heady ups and crashing lows of youthful entanglements as it is a paean to the former grandeur of its stark coastal setting. Water courses through its pages, as rising sea levels heighten inequalities, buoy populist politicians and wash away every certainty of civilisation.

She vividly captures the balance between ferocity and vulnerability as the two girls explore their burgeoning desire; one minute they’re greedy for each other, the next they’re proceeding more gingerly. The judges of the Royal Society Young People’s Book Prize look for books that explain high quality science in an engaging and accessible way.

The Best Near-Future Dystopias | Five Books Expert

A single mum, Jas is offered a cash grant to relocate to Margate with her son JD and daughter Chance. In the ever-widening gap between the haves and the have-nots, those with the resources to do so have long since fled; the only people left are the ones with nowhere else to go. Margate, past and present, weird and hard and beautiful, emblematic of the tidal high-and-low nature of the British seaside.The Mirror's travel newsletter brings you the latest news and expert analysis from across the industry, as well as plenty of travel inspiration.