I was expecting this book to be a depressing memoir of modern britain but it is surprisingly light hearted. Nick is an antisocial behaviour officer and spends his days interacting with people most of society want to pretend don't exist. His work covers drugs, mental health issues and a few people who are just down right rude but humour runs through the book and nick seems to have the ability to laugh at both himself and the situations his job lands him in.
Overall an interesting insight to a job that is relatively hidden from sight to a lot of people, me included.

Nick is an anti-social behaviour officer, and he sets out in this book to document a year in his life on the job. Through it we follow the stories of some incredibly sad individuals (especially Albert) who's lives have either got out of control through addiction, mental health issues or other life circumstances, or who have had to reside next to people with these issues which have impacted on their quality of life.

The book is well written, there is humour amongst the sadness. Nick is also very frank about the impact his job is having on his own mental health and well being. He offers suggestions, coming from a very sound knowledge base, on how the problems could be improved, which the authorities would do well to consider carefully. The present workload for these officers is beyond sustainable.

An interesting book with dark humour, in some ways not as traumatic as I feared, but who's subjects drill into your mind and you will never quite view the mentally ill or addicted in the same way again.

Thank you to NetGalley, Random House UK, Cornerstone and Century for allowing me access to the ARC in exchange for an honest review.

This could have been a really dark memoir, showcasing as it does the people who live life on the sidelines - either in poverty or dancing close to it's borders; drug sellers, drug users, alcoholics, and a good dose of mental health issues thrown into the mix.

But Nick, an ASB officer (ASB stand for anti-social behaviour) has a great sense of humour and injects that into his diary regularly. I would guess that to do this job for any length of time (he did it for 10 years) you'd need a good sense of humour, as well as an abundance of empathy, compassion and common sense, and the ability to hold your temper at times when you're faced with tenants (or customers, or clients, whatever's the current buzzword the council has decided on) who refuse to help themselves even when a helping hand is offered.

There are plenty of people in this book that you'll help feel sorry for - they haven't been dealt a good hand by life, facing challenges that many of us have never had to consider let alone deal with. And there's a good sprinking of nasty. lazy and feckless characters - although even then, many of them have a backstory that rarely failes to elicit a modicum of sympathy for their plight.

At times amusing; at other times an uncomfortable read that will have you questioning why the systems in place don't help (and often hinder), and what we can do as a society and as individuals to "level the playing field" which is what Prime Minister Johnson said he wants to do.

Reading this book, you wonder how the author - or anyone in a similar position - has not gone completely off their rocker and are still able to stay responsive, let alone sane. Wow. This was a strong book, totally in-your-face and makes no excuses for it, so please be warned you will need tough skin and a hard stomach to get through this and not feel like you yourself are falling down the pits of despair. Not for the faint of heart this one, for sure!

An interesting diary that was quite sad but made me laugh in parts. I am sad that the job had such a negative effect on Nick as he suffered with depression and you can see why with the people he had to deal with.

I found the disgruntled council worker tone a bit too much. Yes, it’s a hard job and realistically, there’s far too much bureaucracy to get a lot of things done, but that seemed to be the whole thrust of the book. I was left with the impression that the author was just annoyed that the people who needed help had raised any issues. There was little empathy shown towards anyone. Overall, I wasn’t a fan,

This book was such an eye opening representation into the life of an Anti Social Behaviour Officer. Disturbing at times with lots of dark humour thrown in for lighter moments.

Nick Pettigrew describes all the hard work and heartache that goes into the preperation and support of the numerous people that call on them for help and advice.

Even though this book is quite lighthearted in parts it also explains the toll it actually takes on Nick, the level of emotional turmoil, myriad of expertise from himself and his collects as he reflects on the fact that maybe being an ASBO is not all it's cracked up to be

Overall a very enjoyable and insiteful book that covers both the light and dark parks of our British support system

** ARC provided by Netgalley via the publisher in exchange for an honest review. ***

Another really well done memoir from Nick Pettigrew, an anti-social behaviour officer. If you liked 'This is going to hurt' but Adam Kay or 'Unnatural Causes' by Dr Richard Shepherd than this is likely to be your thing. There are a huge stream of novels coming out like this but they fit into two camps, dull and too personal or thought-provoking and insightful. This book definitely is in the latter.

We join Nick at a point where he is feeling a little disenfranchised by the job and honestly, by the sounds of it, who wouldn't be! We meet interesting characters and see the full scope of what this role takes. It seems that to be a good ASB officer you need to actually be a police officer, medical professional, social worker, teacher and often times parent. You wonder why people aren't tripping over themselves for the role! Would definitely recommend.

The Author admits that he is mentally depressed and taking treatment.
Unfortunately it shows in his writing with the stories being depressive.
Once you have read one of the stories they start to blend into one being very repetitive.
Not for me.

Given the subject matter Nick Pettigrew has written this with a brilliantly cynical and superb sense of humour. I guess if you don’t laugh you’d cry?
This book works through the year month by month showing us the immense caseloads, the infuriating people, and the impact it has on his everyday life.

I’d never heard of an Anti-Social Behaviour Officer before seeing this book, but I was intrigued by the existence of such an occupation. It turns out that in the UK, ASB officers are employed by various organisations to help manage and/or curb anti-social behaviour.

Anti-social behaviour is:
(a) conduct that has caused, or is likely to cause, harassment, alarm or distress to any person 
(b) conduct capable of causing nuisance or annoyance to a person in relation to that person's occupation of residential premises
(c) conduct capable of causing housing-related nuisance or annoyance to any person 

Nick Pettigrew worked for a council managed organisation that provided low-cost housing for those in need for almost twenty years. As an ASB officer, his role was to investigate and take action regarding incidents of anti-social behaviour affecting the tenants in the approximately 3,000 properties he was responsible for.

Such incidents could vary widely, from complaints about noise, to teens hanging out in stairwells, from drug affected persons passed out in doorways, to concerns about domestic violence. Nick would investigate, and then decide on a course of action, which might mean doing nothing; or involving specific agencies like the police, mental health teams, or social workers. He might recommend the installation of CCTV, send a ‘cease and desist’ letter to a tenant, recommend an injunction via court action, or take steps towards eviction. Some incidents could be resolved swiftly, others could take months, or longer.

Presented in a diary format, with heavy use of black humour, Nick relates the events of his days over a period of about a year. The book includes tales of several of his clients that are variously heartbreaking, tragic, absurd, and infuriating, including a vulnerable woman manipulated by strangers into sharing her home with them, a schizophrenic with a crude vocabulary she wielded against her neighbours when she was off her meds, a man who considered carol singers to be an unruly gang, and an elderly Nazi paedophile who disclosed his predilections to his neighbours whenever he wanted to be rehoused.

Nick also writes of the increasing difficulties of his job in the face of UK ‘austerity’ policies that have affected the entire network of social services. With anti-social behaviour on the rise, the already under-funded, under-resourced, and under-valued agencies that serve the disenfranchised, are stretched thinner every year. Nick’s anger at this state of affairs is palpable, and entirely understandable.

It’s no wonder that in the role of an ASB officer, Nick’s own issues with anxiety and depression eventually worsened until he felt he had no choice but to resign. Describing lives plagued by poverty, trauma, mental illness, addiction, racism, loneliness, and family dysfunction, among other issues, Nick laments he grew weary of being able to do nothing but treat some of the symptoms of society’s ills, rather than affect real change.

Raw, honest, funny, and disturbing, Anti-Social is an insightful glimpse into the work of an ASB officer, and the lives of their clients.

This book does not lack humour or compassion, but what it is at its heart is an expose of the impact of austerity and the poorest and most vulnerable members of society (both the perpertators of ASB and their 'victims'. Timely, very well written and eye opening. Highly recommended

Mr Pettigrew may be an anti social behaviour officer (ASBOff) but he is also a very good writer. This book is full of humour, pain (his and others), empathy, ideas, honesty, and every variation of human failure you could envisage. But overall it is affirming, it is full of people trying to cope in hideous circumstances and many of them fail. Their failure is then impacting other people and the ASBOffs go in to resolve - or try to - behaviour that we believe to be unacceptable. Some of the behaviours are obviously “wrong” and their impact on their neighbours can be horrendous. Some are just poor unfortunates who somehow were never taught how to interact with other human beings. Some are just plain bad and selfish but Mr Pettigrew has to deal with them all. He does this with humour and understanding while trying to navigate the Council procedures and the law.

“This book is only one person’s opinion. I don’t claim to have a magic pill to make everything better because I’m not a newspaper columnist.” I think if he was I would read it. The book is full of anecdotes and examples and gives a full insight into a life on the front line amongst society’s strugglers.

I was given a copy of this book by Netgalley in return for an honest review.

Thoughtful, dark and funny, this book is both well written and stunningly well observed. Rather than disconnected stories, this book offer both compassion and context. It isn’t just telling you what’s wrong, but also how to fix it.

Such a good book. A blow by blow account of a year in the life of an anti social behaviour officer, and most importantly his clients. Funny, infuriating, sad and horrifying. A great read.

Found reading this depressing, it’s a very bleak observation of society although I enjoyed the anecdotes that showed the writer’s caring side .

This was an apt book for me. Having gone through and still going through anti social behaviour/hate crime from our neighbors due to our disabilities I could relate so much.

This is about a Council Worker trying his best to reach “solutions” to problems.

No one has to tell me that a Police aren’t interested only in facts because without “proof” they cannot act.
The proof they need is when someone’s injured or worse, dead!

The cut backs aren’t helping these perpetrators BULLIES get their come uppance, oh no, they are helping them get away with it. The nicey nicey approach isn’t working.

For all that said, this poor anti social officer had his work cut out.

There are plenty of amusing things within this book that will lighten anyone’s mood about it all no matter how serous it is.

I’m glad I read it

Very real. Very interesting. And full of surprises.

The human element runs through this book like a stream. The world of the anti-social behaviour officer rarely gets talked about and the positives get talked about even less so. The main positive shining through in this book is the people like Nick who spend their days working to help people. The cases mentioned are varied and cover a lot of difference scenarios - with all different outcomes. The authenticity that this brings to the book is what makes it.

I found the book really balanced due to the fact that Nick also includes how the job affects him and his life outside of work. Without this, context and full understanding of what the job truly entails would be lost. It was refreshing to read such an honest account.

The book is organised like a year in the life of - starting in January and ending in December, the chapters telling a month at a time. I thought this worked really well due to being able to follow the highs and lows along with Nick (again, excellent contextually).

Wow, I can safely say that being an ASB officer is something I don’t ever want to do after reading this book! Talk about enlightening and seeing how the other half lives. It is no wonder that the author ended up on so many meds because of the pressure he was under dealing with all the various clients and their lives.

An enjoyable, insightful read. Far from being judgmental, Nick Pettigrew describes what he's experienced with a remarkable sense of humour that he directs towards himself as much as towards other people. His book shows that absurdity is not the prerogative of people who engage in anti-social behaviour, but very often that of the politics which regiment our lives in the first place.