One Hundred and Fifty-Two Days

Giles Paley-Phillips

From Shelf: Free Verse

The lyrical story of a teenage boy finding hope in the face of his mother's terminal illness, from award-winning author Giles Paley-Phillips

'Superb, moving, beautiful' Joanna Cannon, author of The Trouble with Goats and Sheep

He will be allowed to visit his mother soon. His mother who is terminally ill, his mother who he has been barred from seeing as he recovers from his own bout of pneumonia.

Until then, with the help of his physiotherapist Freya, he must navigate his increasingly empty and isolated existence: his father, who finds solace in the bottom of a glass; his Nana Q, whose betting-slip confetti litters her handbag; his friends, who simply wouldn't understand.

Time passes with the promise of soon, but one hundred and fifty-two days later the boy will come face to face with his grief, and move beyond to a world full of possibility, hope and love.