Grow Up

This book will be compared to Skins and Shameless because it depicts youths taking drugs, sleeping around and living out a nihilistic existence off their faces on whatever they can get their hands on. Which is lazy. Because Grow Up has more heart than that. Written by a seeming prodigy (Brooks may be barely into his twenties but this is far from his debut), Grow Up captures the energetic rush of youth perfectly and tells, in its skewed way, a moral tale about a boy who eventually grows to face up to his responsibilities as he heads towards being not a boy.

Jasper wants to escape but before he can do that, he's got A levels, late night chats with online strippers, one-night-stands and getting his stepdad imprisoned for being a murderer to contend with. What follows is a series of set-pieces where Jasper allows life to hit him in the face, until pregnancy scares and the dawning reality of his own self-worth begin to leave their mark on him. Grow Up is at turns funny and sad, filled with heart as much as it is with sex, drugs and rock'n'roll. Whatever Ben Brooks does next, Grow Up is a great start to a long career.