CULTURE CLUB
Cinnamon Haynes is taking her lunch on the bench where she always sits, on a break from her job as a career counsellor at a local college, yet her world – the carefully managed system she’s worked so hard to create around her – is about to turn upside down. A noise in the bushes leads her to an abandoned crying baby no more than a few days old. Cinnamon’s own upbringing in and out of foster care gives her first-hand knowledge of the challenges awaiting the baby if she were to hand it to the authorities. She decides to take the child home and risk revealing her past to her husband, unsettling an already shaky marriage. On top of this, Cinnamon is black; the baby is fair-skinned and blue-eyed. It feels as though the entire world is grim-faced at the thought of a black woman raising a white baby, yet with every second that passes, her connection to the baby begins to deepen. She knows her only priority is to do right by the child, but where exactly is her real mother? A cleverly written book that is painful in parts: the racism and hardship experienced by Cinnamon throughout is magnified during her attempt to care for Bluebell, and highlights the prejudices within the world of fostering. Who gets to decide who should be a mother? YOU WERE ALWAYS MINE BY CHRISTINE PRIDE AND JO PIAZZA
BY CECILIA VINESSE The Girl Next Door
Feel as though the lead up to this season has completely wrung you out? I prescribe young adult fiction. Specifically, The Girl Next Door by Cambridge-based Cecilia Vinesse, a heartwarming novel following teenage film buff Cleo Ferrara through her senior year. Her plans were all set: graduating and heading off to NYU’s film school with her high school boyfriend and fellow movie lover, Daniel Sheridan. But an unexpected plot twist sees Daniel dump Cleo out of the blue for the head cheerleader Kiki, leaving Cleo unsettled and adrift. She commiserates with her neighbour and former best friend Marianne, who was Kiki’s girlfriend until the sudden recoupling – and the pair agree to fake a relationship to make their former lovers jealous. Is it a meet-cute if you’ve known each other for decades? Packed with lovingly crafted cinematic references and characters you’ll wish you’d known at school, this is a gorgeously written book that’s perfect for fans of Sex Education and Heartstopper ; laugh-out-loud funny, meltingly swoony and completely compelling. A heartwarming novel following teenage film buff Cleo Ferrara through her senior year
CAMBSEDITION.CO.UK JULY 2023 31
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