Five Miles from Outer Hope by Nicola Barker
Five Miles from Outer Hope is an instant classic of teenage self-discovery in the tradition of Absolute Beginners and The Catcher in the Rye. It's the summer of 1981. You're stuck in a semi-derelict art-deco hotel on a tiny island off the South coast of Devon. You're sixteen years old and six foot three inches tall. You're a girl giant. You have a clitoris the size of a Jersey Royal. Your nipples are digging like blind moles through the holes in your crocheted waistcoat. There's nothing to do but paint Margaret Thatcher mugs to supplement the meagre family income, wait for Soft Cell's 'Tainted Love' to come out and dream of literary murderer Jack Henry Abbott. Until a ginger stranger arrives, stinking of antiseptic . . .