Neil Coleman

Roskill is the story of the Campton family who move from Christchurch to Auckland for a better life. Moana, John, and teens, James and Lucy rent a house in the suburb of Mt Roskill. Immediately trouble finds the family as a group of hoodlums target James for looking at them out a window. From that moment on trouble is everywhere. John (the father) goes out on the first day in town and through a misfortunate meeting in a pub finds himself addicted to 'P'. The two kids have a number of run ins with a local gang of kids which each time ends in a call to the police. Within two days the Campton family have met with the Finaus, the family of two of the hoodlum gang. As John sinks quickly into a world of drugs the rest of the family attempt to find their own methods of coping. Eventually James takes off and Lucy escapes into online chat rooms. Moana and her new support network attempt to save John while holding together the rest of the family and dealing with all the side-line events.

First let me say that I like this story. It was compelling, the characters were real and the subject was well dealt with. Then let me say that this book was incredibly hard to read. It was sadly let down by its editing. Firstly the spelling, grammar and plot inconsistencies were hard to ignore (I tried really hard). The other thing that really jumped out was the timeline. This book was action packed! Every page had another run in or skirmish, there was no downtime. In the end we are told that everything that occurred happened within a month. The timing is just not believable and made the story feel extremely contrived.

I feel that all teens would benefit from reading this story. Auckland teens would be able to identify easily with many of the circumstances in the novel. Unfortunately I wonder how many will persevere long enough to understand the messages of caution and hope that the novel offers.… (meer)