Divine by Joanna Traynor

Divine

Joanna Traynor

A sharp, edgy novel with the character Viv at its centre - 19 years old, mixed race and with a face permanently disfigured. Her tangles with the law, her prodigious drug use, hopeless love life and an unsavoury group of friends are captured with unsparing detail. A novel that fizzes with the raw energy and emotion of youth culture.

Extract
Irish said he'd be right over. I put the receiver down. I stood in quiet contemplation, finished my spliff and prepared myself for Roy. I'd like to say that virgin pools of sex seeped between my toes and rose up to bathe the space between my legs. But they didn't. I would like to say that my mind was away to the sound of a welcoming kiss from him, an opening, a suck. But it wasn't. I was fifteen years old, calling my first boyfriend, asking him to come out and play. I was shit scared.
'Ehhrr. I'm waiting on somebody, actually. I ehhrr ... I'll come round later if that's all right.'
He sounded irritatingly casual. And impatient.
'Yeah. OK. I've got a bit of a problem, though. Well, not me. Vinnie, actually. He's in the mental hospital.'
Parallels
  • Trainspotting by Irvine Welsh
  • Society Within by Courttia Newland
  • The Scholar by Courttia Newland
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Violence
Explicit sexual Content