Meg Rosoff

In the 1960s, off the coast of East Anglia, a disgruntled boarding school student develops an obsessive friendship with a boy living by himself at the edge of the sea.

What I was

'I was at boarding school in East Anglia, my third. I didn’t want to be there. But if there had been no school, there would be no Finn. He lived in a hut on the coast. He was like the hut, in fact – it took a while for both of them to warm up. But that is all I longed for. Finn, warming to me. A nod. Half a smile. Asking me to help on the boat. Not asking me to leave. I didn’t want it to end. Now I am waiting for the end, and looking back to the beginning.' Haunting, intense and with a surprising twist in the tale – What I Was is unlike anything you will have read before . . .

What I Was

Elizabeth Hisserich

Very mixed feelings about this one. I think if I had read it closer to the time it was released, I might have really loved it, but reading it now it didn’t quite work for me.  The main character gave off Holden Caulfield vibes, which irritated me.  However, there is a quality to Rosoff’s prose that I found both sparse and beautiful. 

What I was

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