Borders Book Group

As a distraction from sleazy male admirers, spiteful classmates and her mother's cancer, Eve's eyes are opened to a multicolour life of one-night stands, drug-fuelled discos and endless varieties of cheap plonk. She barely has time to notice Adam. Adam, however, notices Eve. Whilst contending with sexual frustration, a violent father and increasingly compulsive behaviour, is he too busy reading Razzle in his bedroom to make his move? Narrated alternately by Adam and Eve, alongside a cast of teenage delinquents, perverts and butterflies, "Apples" is an exploration of the difficulties of growing up, the complications of friendship, and the consequences of getting 'fucked as quick as you can'.

Anyone who writes off our white working class as 'chavs' probably ought to read Richard Milward's Apples, a fresh and lively take on growing up on a Middlesbrough council estate.