The Shock of the Fall: WINNER OF THE COSTA BOOK OF THE YEAR 2013

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It takes place over three timelines: the present where Matt is writing; the past where Simon is alive; and the decade since Simon died. It was impossible for me not to embrace this character, by books end we know almost everything about him and want everything to work out for him. Even better was that Filer managed to inject sharp bursts of humour which cut through what could otherwise be an oppressive narrative to entertain and make the work somehow more real. Although events take on a nightmarish tinge when dead Simon begins to hide under his hospital bed, losing the hallucinations means losing his brother all over again.

I remember going to the theaters and seeing the movie "Beautiful Minds", I loved this movie, was completely blown away. It tries some strange stylistic tricks like drawings or font changes to little effect and for no reason - variety maybe to distract the reader from the dull prose? Matt’s traumatic past is so profound that he begins manifesting “commanding hallucinations” of Simon.Filer explores events, both past and present, in a purposefully ambiguous and sometimes disorientating narrative style. We follow him as he tries to live in a life that is difficult and strange, for him things are never simple. There are books which, because of the sheer skill with which every word is chosen, linger in your mind for days. He often interrupts his own narration, reflecting on what he already mentioned and sometimes even foreshadowing on what's going to happen later. Matt's voice – puzzled, resolute and frank – is dazzlingly rendered, and his descriptions of life on a secure ward are fascinating.

I have never read anything quite like this book before, it is a unique experience traveling along in the mindset of a mentally ill young man. Inside their heads – as well as fighting their illness - every mental patient is either consciously or unconsciously Jack Nicholson in One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest.

When a book is being told from the perspective of a character, the reader is inside the character's head and therefore there are no secrets. I don't feel the heat of the afternoon sun making me sweat beneath a clean white dressing on my knee, or the itching of suncream in the cracks of my scabs. Filer presents someone helpless in the face of his grief, a burden he can't share with his own sweet, damaged parents. But only on occasion, most of the time he seems to be a rather boring young man with nothing much to say, except about himself (a point he himself makes).

It is certainly neither stunning nor a book that one would have a hard time putting down, and I would never recommend this book considering the wealth of options available to readers. He also worked as a performance poet contributing regularly to festivals and spoken-word events across the UK, including Glastonbury, Latitude, Shambala, Port Eliot and the Cheltenham Literature Festival. Unreliably narrated in the first person by 19-year-old protagonist Matt Homes, the story begins with a recollection from his boyhood. Matt agrees, and slowly begins to remember what happened to Simon by writing about the night he died.Log in Keep reading with a freetrial Subscribe and get your first month of online and app access for free. He attended the Ridings High School, a large secondary school located in the village of Winterbourne in South Gloucestershire. It is beautifully constructed and I'm sure it will not only remain with me for a long time because of its subject matter, but also because of its original construction.