Me and Mr Booker
Text Classics
Cory Taylor
Looking back, Martha could’ve said no when Mr Booker first tried to kiss her. That would’ve been the sensible thing to do. But Martha is sixteen, she lives in a small dull town—a cemetery with lights—her father is mad, her home is stifling, and she’s waiting for the rest of her life to begin.
Of course Martha would kiss the charming Englishman who brightened her world with style, adventure, whiskey, cigarettes and sex.
But Martha didn’t count on the consequences.
Me and Mr Booker is a story about feeling old when you’re young and acting young when you’re not.
andMe and Mr Booker
‘Hands down, Me and Mr Booker is one of the best coming-of-age novels I’ve ever read. In it, Cory Taylor has given us an irresistible, whip-smart heroine who thinks and speaks like the 16-year-old you wish you’d been…Me and Mr Booker is sexy, smart and brutally funny, and reminds us that while teenagers grow up fast, it’s only because they’re surrounded by adults who behave like children.’
‘Cory Taylor’s Me and Mr Booker has the heart of Lolita and the soul of Catcher In The Rye, this is one of the most assured debut novels I have ever read. These characters feel so real that they become almost family. Refreshing, surprising, sexy and ultimately very moving.’
‘Me and Mr Booker is…elegant and controlled and wickedly funny.’
‘A vibrant, questioning and unpredictable read.’
‘Me and Mr Booker is sharply observed and blackly comic, but it is also a tender depiction of love, sex, power and one girl’s heartbreaking step into adulthood.’
‘Cory Taylor’s characters are magnificently created.’
‘Me and Mr Booker is pitched as a coming-of-age novel, but this implies a simpler narrative than Taylor has achieved. Martha is a memorable creation and an assured debut.’
‘Taylor’s straightforward prose captures the nuances of being at an age where you cannot see the differences between being a teenager and being an adult.’
‘Me and Mr. Booker … [is] about Martha, who, in her determination not to become like the stagnantly disappointed adults in her life, embarks on another rite you may find familiar: the probably painful, perhaps misguided, and definitely enlightening rush to grow up.’
‘Me and Mr. Booker is a book of wavering, hesitant in its sympathies, welcoming readers to find their own allegiances however they please, which is a mark of its confidence, as well as Cory Taylor’s impressive talents.’
