A review by adamskiboy528491
Common Ground by Naomi Ishiguro

4.0

Did you ever have a friend who made you see the world differently? [b:Common Ground|55854046|Common Ground|Naomi Ishiguro|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1604695472l/55854046._SY75_.jpg|87067036] by [a:Naomi Ishiguro|19590232|Naomi Ishiguro|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1578592829p2/19590232.jpg] is a poignant coming-of-age story. Not only is this novel a beautiful depiction of an unlikely friendship of two boys, turned young men, learning who they are & their places in the world there is a political narrative that runs alongside, slowly building & building until the climax of the novel.

The two main characters are Stan, an outcast at school & Charlie, from the traveller community & an outsider. The book starts in 2003 during their schooldays, & then we move to 2012, where the two unexpectedly meet again, & roles have been somewhat reversed. In essence, it’s a coming of age story but focuses on social injustice/discrimination in the traveller community. It was good to see this being highlighted in fiction as usually skin colour/ethnicity is always a subject matter, & talking about other discrimination issues makes such a change.

The book raises interesting questions & certainly made me think about the difficulties faced by Traveller families & how the whole structure of modern society is constructed to make their lifestyle very difficult to carry on. I don’t know much about the Traveller community, & they are not very well represented in contemporary fiction, so it was great to learn a bit more about this group. I particularly loved the overarching theme of this book.