Matthew Crow (1) (1987–)

Some books just speak to you, some books just make you look at the world with a more positive outlook. Matthew Crow has written an utterly charming story of finding hope in loss, of finding friendship in unlikely places, and of escaping the life we perhaps feel we are forced to live.

94-year old Mr Baxter, resident of the Melrose Gardens Retirement Home, has one last thing he needs to do in his life. The Home is populated by a suitably eccentric cast of characters, and Baxter finds connection show more with one of the part-time staff, Greg Cullock, a young man carrying a burden of grief with which Baxter can connect. Together they embark on a trip to France – evading the clutches of care home manager Suzanne – to find closure for Baxter, as he prepares to make an emotional journey to say goodbye at a war memorial to his lost love Thomas, missing in action from the war.

Yes, this is a well-trodden path for books (and films): cross-generational friendship, a journey to find peace, lost love. But Crow writes with such a vitality that, through the tears, you can’t help but laugh and take sheer joy in the life-affirming tale as it unfolds. That is not to say that there is not sadness – there is, in bucket-loads. There is such injustice in what happens to Thomas – revealed to us as readers but not, tellingly, to Baxter – and Greg’s burden in having to cope with the suicide of his younger brother is hard to read. However, as the characters find their own peace and some sort of resolution in the quiet of the war memorials of France, you can’t help but feel the life-force that the novel emits: ‘Live your life, live it bravely and beautifully. That is the greatest tribute you can pay to all those who could not.’

It’s the kind of book that you need when life is a bit grey and getting you down. It will make you cry and laugh, and hopefully leave you with a smile on your face. I definitely recommend it.

(Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for an ARC of the book in return for an honest and unbiased review.) show less

Have I ever hated a main character so much? This kid had his head so far up his own ass he was talking out of his asshole but the sound came out his mouth. Look - I'm all for smart kids. What I can't take is the 'better than thou' attitude that Francis had throughout the whole book. He called himself a sophisticate, an intellectual, which is annoying, but then Matthew Crow would give him an "impressive array of literature" and make him like Romantic poets and then go ahead and put down Kelly show more and Paul, making them caricatures of teenagers. He didn't even have any redeeming qualities either. He whined a lot. Like, actually whining.

And Amber - typical Manic Pixie Dream Girl. She dies at the end to change Francis's life. It's typical and annoying and unsurprising. Bad trope. She's a Cool Girl who Changes The Boy's Life and Gets Him Into Trouble and shit like that.

This book was trying too hard to be The Fault in Our Stars, too, but at the same time ... cancer really wasn't a huge part of the book? There was no explanation of treatment. It was very badly written. Oh, and it was romanticising a terminal illness as well. Yeah. Not good all around. show less

The opening image of Ashes is a powerful one - a group of kids trying to stone a cat to death. The reason? "Something to do".

The tone is set for the rest of the novel. Bleakness, lack of hope, pointless violence, misdirected anger, innocent victims. The setting is Meadow Well council estate in North-East England in the early 1990s, site of a real-life riot which Crow fictionalises in this debut novel.

One interesting technique in the book is the way that characters are drawn almost with equal show more weight. There is a central character, Jack, and the main narrative is driven by the question of whether he'll turn his life around after his recent prison release or get sucked back into crime. But there's also an array of other characters who get quite a bit of space on the page. And even passers-by or shop-owners are given names, backgrounds, miniature stories of their own.

It's quite unusual in the way it's done - almost as if Crow is trying to make the estate itself into a character by describing all the individuals in it. The strength of this approach is that there are no cardboard cutout characters. Everyone in the book is three-dimensional and believable. The downside, for me, was that sometimes the story lacked focus. You end up with a large cast of characters and it can be hard to remember who Sean and Dean are, or Alex and Ashley and Johnny and Paul...

Generally in a novel there's an expectation that characters are introduced for a reason. When they aren't, it leaves you feeling a bit let down. Nathalie, for example, gets a lot of time and attention, but her impact on Jack's life is not as big as I thought it would be. In my opinion the novel would have worked better if it had focused more sharply on Jack's story, not the story of the whole estate. Still, as I said it was an interesting approach, and in some ways it worked.

Overall I enjoyed the book and thought the writing, though uneven in places, was very lively and fresh. Matthew Crow is still only 22 and I think Ashes is a promising debut. show less

From the book jacket: Francis has plans to come into his own, forging his way in school and life, despite his loony, awkward, broken family … and noticeable lack of friends. Then he is diagnosed with leukemia. … In the hospital, Francis meets fellow patient Amber. Fierce, tough, one-of-a-kind Amber.

My reactions
I really liked the relationship that Francis had with his older brother. I never did figure out what was up with his Mom, but she grew on me by the end. (This was probably show more indicative of Francis’ maturation and the way he came to appreciate his mother more as he grew up.)

Amber was an enigma. I liked her bravery and outlandish refusal to conform. But I never really felt the love between her and Francis.

There are some scenes that had me rolling my eyes, but in general, as “teens-with-cancer-romance” genre books go, this is pretty entertaining. It held my attention and was a fairly fast read. And yes, I did tear up. show less