And the Stars Were Burning Brightly

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A very emotional read, beautifully written, deals with loss and love in such sensitive and well handled way. She’s also facing crisis point with her best friend, Tara, who she has known her whole life but who is starting to become a more manipulative and cruel influence on her life. This book addresses many topics, which I felt particularly resonated with me, social media, and young people, bullying, being targeted because you’re different. Yet somehow, despite this incredibly heavy subject matter, Jawando still manages to retain messages of hope, redemption and fresh starts.

Megan’s voice is much more hopeful, so I think that they both provide a good balance when it comes to exploring the themes in the book.Megan, however, is still struggling with the grief of losing her Father in a freak car accident, and losing Al brings her worst difficulties back to life.

I would definitely recommend this book to all teenagers, to read about what can happen, or could be happening around you.However, her and Nate soon become friends and get comfort from the fact they can both remember Al and knew the real him. Join our community to get personalised book suggestions, extracts straight to your inbox, 10% off RRPs, and to change children’s lives. The book follows Nathan, a 15-year-old boy in Wythenshawe near Manchester, one of Europe’s largest council estates, as he recovers from his older brother, Al, committing suicide.

Nate is a 15 year old boy living just outside Manchester City centre and trying to fit in at school when her world is torn apart. In this interview, Danielle tells us about the inspiration behind her book, and the importance of writing about this difficult subject matter. Danielle Jawando uses her first hand experience of bullying to ground Burning Brightly with the swirling, struggling thoughts of someone who begins to consider suicide the only option. Reading the author's note and knowing that she faced similar issues as a teen, makes the book even more heartbreaking. It explores the difficulties young people, particularly men, have with expressing their feelings openly and asking for help.

However, the prevalence of social media and the was our lives our so connected means these standards are reinforced to everyone day in, day out. I think I will be thinking about this book for a very long time and this most definitely should be a major seller! It's been a while since I read a book focused on suicide but this is already one of my favourites on the topic.

As I still feel there is a lot of stigma surrounding young men talking about their feelings and seeking help when they need it. He meets Al’s friend from school Megan who too wants to find out what happened and is desperate to keep Al’s memory alive.

So I wanted to emphasise this idea that there is nothing wrong with being ‘different’ (whatever that might look or feel like) and that there is great strength and power that comes from being who you really are. The way that the dark side of social media was perceived was also commendable and it really did get me thinking about how despite how good social media can be, it can be very distressing for some people to use with regards to online bullying etc.