Aspiring rapper Shaun (aka Growls) wants to enter an MC battle with his best friend Shanks but when they are humiliated by a viral video that gets shown around school, he finds himself lonely and isolated, coupled with the threat of his family being evicted from their home as his mother struggles to pay the bills. But a ray of sunshine appears in the form of new friend Siobhan who he develops a very sweet friendship with - she has her own issues but shows Shaun how life can be different and encourages him to enter the rap battle as a solo artist and improbably, this all turns out a great success.

As beautiful in composition as they are gut-wrenching, this is a collection of poems that will leave their imprint. A superb example of the range and skill of Nicola Davies, it is very evident that each and every word has been given considerable thought and as a consequence they sing. At times plummeting the reader to the depths of despair and in the next, offering the glimmers of hope which keep people alive. This is poetry at its finest, able to take a topical issue, remove the politics and remind the reader that at the heart of this issue are humans - no different from you or me.

Idiosyncrasy

noun

An idiosyncrasy is an unusual quality - something strange or out of the ordinary that is unique to a certain person or thing. If you can't sleep unless you have washed your feet first, you could describe that as an idiosyncrasy.

Simone's old phone had many idiosyncrasies, but the strangest thing was that she had to hit it with a shoe to get the battery out.

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