Junk

Melvin Burgess

The love story of two runaway teenagers, Gemma and Tar, and their struggles with heroin addiction.
Melvin Burgess’ most ambitious and complex novel is a multi-faceted and vivid depiction of a group of young people in the grip of addiction. It is told in many different voices, from the addicts themselves to the friends watching from the outside who try to prevent tragedy.
Winner of the Carnegie Medal and the Guardian Children’s Fiction Prize.

Reviews

"Everyone should read Junk."
The Times

"Melvin Burgess's ground-breaking Junk remains the best book about teenagers and drugs to this day"
Julia Eccleshare, Guardian Online

"Junk has a perfect sense of time and place, characters who feel real and it may just be the best YA book ever."
Robert Muchamore - Big Issue, Top 5 Young Adult Books

"Occasionally a 'teenage novel' comes along which makes one reconsider the whole genre and its potential. Such a book is Melvin Burgess's Junk."
Robert Dunbar - Children's Books in Ireland

"Personally I prefer the love triangle in Melvin Burgess’s Junk, in which Tar’s devotion to heroin split he and Gemma apart."
Juno Dawson - Guardian