What I Was

Meg Rosoff, multi award winning author of How I Live Now, explores the pain of first love and coming-of-age in her compelling novel What I Was, which was once described by The Times as 'Samuel Beckett on ecstasy.'

Shall I tell you about the year I discovered love?

I'd been kicked out of two boarding schools and the last thing I wanted was to be here, on the East Anglian coast, in a third.

But without St Oswald's, I would not have discovered the fisherman's hut with its roaring fire, its striped blankets, its sea monster stew.

Without St Oswald's, I would not have met the boy with the beautiful eyes, the flickering half-smile, and no past.

Without St Oswald's I would not have met Finn.

And without Finn, there would be no story.

Shall we begin?