Sea Monsters

Chloe Aridjis Chatto & Windus €15.65 In Mexico City, 17year-old Luisa rebels against her middleclass parents by hanging out with alternative artists and drug dealers. Exploring an abandoned house, she meets Tomás, a mysterious older boy, and persuades him to run away with her to a hippy beach on a search for a troupe of circus dwarfs. But Tomás is not to be the compassionate character she imagined, and before long she starts to regret her impulsiveness. Aridjis’s coming-of-age novel is rich in atmosphere, and there’s an undeniable charm to its dreamlike narrative. Anthony Gardner