book cover

Just In Case

by Meg Rosoff

Interest age: 12+
Reading age: 12+

Published by Penguin, 2007

  • Coming-of-age

About this book

Fate is watching David Case and the 15-year-old soon becomes consumed by the fear that it is going to catch up with him. David feels doomed and even changing his name to Justin and adopting an edgy new image does not seem to protect him entirely from its clutches.

In trying to escape fate, Justin embarks on a voyage of self discovery, finding solace in the company of beautiful and eccentric photographer Agnes, his baby brother Charlie and his imaginary dog Boy. But will he find the strength to fight fate in one last terrifying encounter?

This quirky, off-beat novel acutely depicts the feelings of pain and alienation felt by many adolescents. At times both surreal and existential, this is a gripping second novel from the acclaimed author of How I Live Now.

About the author

Meg Rosoff was born in Boston, USA in 1956, the second of four sisters. She attended Harvard University in 1974. After three years at Harvard she moved to England and studied sculpture at Central St. Martins in London, England. She returned to the United States to finish her degree in 1980, and later moved to New York City for nine years, where she worked in publishing and advertising.

Aged 32, Meg returned to London and has lived there ever since. Between 1989 and 2003, she worked for a variety of advertising agencies as a copywriter. She began to write novels after her youngest sister died of breast cancer. Her young adult novel How I Live Now was published in 2004, in the same week she was diagnosed with breast cancer. It won The Guardian Children's Fiction prize, the Michael L. Printz Award in the United States, and was shortlisted for a Whitbread Award in 2004. In 2005 she published a children's book, Meet Wild Boars, which was illustrated by Sophie Blackall. Her second novel, Just in Case, was published in 2006 and won the 2007 CILIP Carnegie Medal and Germany's Jugendliteraturpreis.

More books like this

Share this page Twitter Facebook LinkedIn