Sarah Reviews: Before the Fire by Sarah Butler

Meet 17-year-old Stick, so called because of his stick-like frame. Having grown up within the grim confines of estate life in North Manchester, Stick is on the cusp of manhood and looking for adventure. He and his best mate Mac have pooled their cash, bought a dodgy car on eBay and now they’re going to drive it to Spain. The route is mapped out. Sun, sand, and girls await.

Then, the night before they are due to leave, something terrible happens. Suddenly, the trip is off, and Stick is stuck in Manchester where the life he was so desperate to escape has fractured further than he could ever have imagined.

Sarah Butler’s Before The Fire packs a punch. It’s a Young Adult novel that feels very, very real. Learning that the author also runs a consultancy which ‘develops literature and arts projects that explore and question our relationship to place’ explains why the book’s setting comes through so strongly – in different ways it seems to shape the personalities of each and every character.

The character of Stick is someone who is going to stay with me. Though I finished Before The Fire in just two days, for the time I was reading I was right inside the head of this 18-year-old boy as he tried to make sense of life, and of loss as he tried to get his head around the process of growing up.

You don’t let go of characters like that easily. You don’t want to. In fact, there was a moment about two thirds of the way through the book, that I thought to myself: every single one of these characters has managed to get to me in some way. They all came alive for me.

It’s important to note that the story occurs in 2011 and that it interconnects with the riots which caused chaos and looting in cities and towns across England. This strand of the story is both strong and important but the real journey the reader is taken on is a personal one: it’s Sticks.

Before The Fire is Sarah Butler’s second novel. Now I’m keen to read her first.