Emma McCleary’s review of ‘Life: An exploded diagram’ by Mal Peet

Life: An Exploded Diagram by Mal Peet is one of the best books I’ve read this year.

If I’m honest, I wasn’t initially attracted to the book when it came out (2011) because the plot features the Cuban Missile Crisis and I just thought, “boring.” I’ve got a problem with making untrue snap decisions about books.

Clem Ackroyd, our central character, lives with his parents and grandmother in a claustrophobic home too small to accommodate their larger-than-life characters in the bleak Norfolk countryside.

Life takes us from intimate moments in a teenage boy’s life to the world stage and back again with ease.

We’re off to school with Clem and his mate, we’re picking strawberries in the blazing sun of the English countryside, we’re scoping out new places for make out sessions… then we’re in JFK’s war room, part of the Cuban Missile Crisis, flying high about the Arctic avoiding…

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