Love Me

Love Me is the startling debut novel by poet and singer Gemma Weekes. Written in similes that drip with cultural relevance, rhythmical intelligence and poetical sibilance, she weaves textures into a simple tale where a punk rock girl falls in love with a hip-hop guy and obsesses over the perfect memory of a summer they once spent together. Now they're grown, except she never outgrew him and he's trying to make his way, while she is unsure and directionless, abandoned physically by her mother and emotionally by her father so she holds on to him as the one perfect memory of her life. He is Zed and she is Eden. When Zed comes over from New York to be a rapper, she follows him around wracked by jealousy and consumed with envy for anyone who warrants his attention more than her. After a crisis point where she takes her obsession too far, she decamps to New York and her mystical absent aunt's family of strays who welcome her in and teach her to love herself. Empowered and ready to take on the world, hers is shook once more by the reappearance of Zed in her life and her burgeoning yet difficult relationship with privileged revolutionary rock musician Spanish. As they head for a cataclysmic conclusion, her mediations on love and what she thought was a traditional infatuation becomes a deeper manifestation of her soul.

Weekes' command of beautiful similes and achingly poignant metaphors for the path of love crashing and burning make this a strong self-assured piece of work, full of bravado like hip-hop, full of energy like punk rock. It's a beautifully written debut novel and one that makes hip-hop and the communities of Hackney and New York accessible, yet in that London flex with the slang, and the inflections that give it a home-grown feeling.