Jonathan Aldridge

Banes of Boys and Girls Jonathan Aldridge

"To be honest I always thought Laura Cassady was a top girl, the best." Following a group of students in their final year of university, Jonathan Aldridge's debut coming-of-age novel explores the intimate love triangle between the narrator, his beloved Laura and her boyfriend James. The story fixates upon Laura, her beauty, her wit, her ease and energy, to whom everyone pales in comparison. Laura's boyfriend James is an English graduate who "has an odd pseudo-intellectualism about him"; Beth is "one of those flirty girls who's good to have around because you know nothing serious is going to happen"; and Emma is "loyal to the brim of self-annihilation, a one-woman adoration programme" for Laura. The story explores through these relationships what it means to be a boy, a girl, a lover, a beloved, and most of all a young person being dragged over the brink of adulthood. Chatty and arch in style, Banes of Boys and Girls is a tale of first love and of the certainty of youth as it is reborn into the confusion of young adulthood.