Shy, by Max Porter (Faber, 2023)
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Neil
Shy is a strange, lovely and unsettling little book. Only 120 pages, a one-sitting read, telling of only a few hours of a teenage boy's life, it's a true epic in miniature. It's written as a stream-of-consciousness, a multitude of voices, an oblique narrative and an insight into a disturbed mind. It's both uplifting and rather depressing, but an extraordinary achievement nonetheless.