“Music Love Drugs War” is a coming of age novel set in Derry 1981, as the end of the school arrives, the novel follows four characters as they make their way into the real world, not only having to choose their future but about which side they are on, and facing the consequences of that. The novel axis spins on one moment early in the novel when a best friend of theirs is killed. Despite this big event, the novel takes far to long to really click into gear. There is a hazy mist that falls upon all our characters in the aftermath, but is quite a slog to read. The novel cannot decide what our characters really care about:
“sex was for fun, music was the most important thing in the world” is a bold statement but never really fulfilled, the title demonstrates the mess of the novel gets itself in. The novel does kick into gear in the later stages, when the characters finally move on and show that anger and frustration we have been hearing about. Ultimately the novel felt incredibly messy and I didn’t feel I cared for any of the characters as they decided where their elegances lied.

An authentic coming-of-age tale of a group of friends in Belfast, 1981, set against the Troubles and especially the IRA hunger strike. I found this quite uneven as the writing doesn't always flow and the characterisation is quite thin with the girls more or less dropping out of the story (apart from Liz). Some of the 'action' scenes are rendered more vividly and the writing feels more seamless in the second half. So it's worth sticking with this despite the slow start: 3.5 stars.