Non Pratt
(Walker Books)
Didn’t get a Glastonbury ticket this year? Missing the festival atmosphere? You can nonetheless experience camping, first-aid tents, burger vans, cocky rockstars and even manky festival toilets in Non Pratt’s new book Remix.
Kaz and Ruby have been best friends since the first day of secondary school. Ruby is as loud as Kaz is quiet. Despite their differences, they are inseparable and united in their love of music. Which is why they are so excited to go to music festival Remix where they will finally get a chance to see their favourite band, Goldentone. Best laid plans there might be, but nothing seems to be working out quite as they expected, especially with ex-boyfriends in the mix.
Remix is a gritty but really quite heartwarming tale of friendship and love of music. Similarly to her début Trouble, Non Pratt uses multiple narrative point of view, a device she uses with dexterity. Both voices are distinctive and it brings really depth to the story. She also loves to mess with writing conventions; nothing is not quite as it first seems. She plays with readers’ expectations, giving readers clues so they can suss out the characters only to make a complete U-turn and take readers by surprise. They find themselves switching allegiances. I certainly did. This works particularly well at conveying that ‘real’ people are not one-dimensional, and more importantly that even heroines in books are flawed, and therefore human. This is a real strength of the book, none of the characters are not perfect. They mess up, try again, don’t always get it right at all. They lie. They are selfish sometimes. But this makes them human, and relatable. Pratt’s writing is bold and frank, and her Remix is an astute take on despite how toxic friendship can be, a good friendship will survive many hurdles that other relationships won’t. It is a fabulous summer read!
Buy Remix
Source: review copy from publisher
