Shy by Max Porter

Things keep slipping up for Shy. All he wants is sex, spliffs and his own turntables, and for all the red noise in his mind to disappear. But again and again he spirals past his senses and ends up with his head in his hands and carnage around him. You mustn’t do that to yourself Shy. You mustn’t hurt yourself like that. He’s been kicked out of two schools, been cautioned, arrested, stabbed his stepdad in the finger and bottled a former Tumble Tots playmate, but it’s the taunts and teasing of his new schoolmates that haunt Shy. At Last Chance – a home for ‘very disturbed young men’ – he is surrounded by people who want to help him, but his night terrors aren’t getting any better. The night is huge and it hurts. So tonight he’s stepping into it, with the haunted beginnings of a plan.