Heft

I have a thing about coming-of-age novels, particularly American ones. I love The Perks of Being a Wallflower and really enjoyed The Absolutely True Story of a Part-Time Indian and even the Tales of the City series has a strong coming-of-age theme. I'm not sure if it's the sentimentality of these novels or the inherent character development that comes with growing up which makes these books so attractive to me. Perhaps it's just nostalgia for youth. I dunno. The American setting of these novels can't be underrated either, they're always more glamorous than Cricklewood and help to suck me into another world, another lifetime, another youth.

Liz Moore's Heft shares many of the same qualities as the books I've mentioned above with the main thrust being, young characters, on the cusp of adulthood, trying to work out this whole life thing. Heft differs in one unusual respect from other coming-of-age novels as there are not one, but two characters growing up. Kel Keller is an eighteen year old boy trying to get to grasps with who he is and Arthur Opp is a 550lb recluse who hasn't left his home in over a decade. It is this contrast between a youngster and a emotionally sensitive older man which makes Heft an engaging read. 

At times heartbreaking, Heft moved me. As I said before, the sentimentality of novels such as Heft really do affect me (perhaps I'm having a mid-twenties crisis). It had a perfect blend of plot and characterisation which had me gripped, staying up 'til the early hours to finish the book, something which hasn't happen to me for a fair while now (I think James Oswald's Natural Causes was the last novel to come close to this sensation). Read it and feel winsome.