Shy by Max Porter

From the bestselling author of Grief is the Thing with Feathers and Lanny, Shy is a novel about guilt, rage, imagination and boyhood. It is about being lost in the dark, and realising you are not alone.

This is the story of a few strange hours in the life of a troubled teenage boy. You mustn't do that to yourself Shy. You mustn't hurt yourself like that.

He is wandering into the night listening to the voices in his head: his teachers, his parents, the people he has hurt and the people who are trying to love him.

'Got your special meds, nutcase?'

He is escaping Last Chance, a home for 'very disturbed young men', and walking into the haunted space between his night terrors, his past and the heavy question of his future.