The Things We Did for Love by Natasha Farrant, reviewed by Mal Peet
The Things We Did for Love is aimed pretty squarely at mid-teens and naturally, perhaps commercially, Farrant has to grapple with matters to do with explicitness. When writing for 15-year-old readers, one's on-board censor tends to start bleeping. Sometimes, I think, it should be ignored. The two crucial events in this novel are Ari's effortless seduction of Luc and the devastation of Samaroux. The first is represented in the text by three lines of white space, merely a suggestive lacuna. The second, while very nasty, is less horrifying than the factual matter on the Oradour.info website. ... Nevertheless, The Things We Did for Love is an impressive fable about the loss of innocence and the consequent descent into hell. Farrant's prose is lucid, and although it uncoils slowly her story has a savage bite. It is also a grim but fine memorial to the half-forgotten victims of a peculiarly savage atrocity. MAL PEET
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