How You Saved My Life

Fifteen-year-old Johnny Crayfield should be revising for exams, arguing with his dad, and pretending not to care what Sarah thinks of him.

Instead, after his father’s sudden death, he is left trying to hold together what remains of his family: a mother disappearing under the weight of grief, a little sister desperate for kindness and routine, and a rage inside himself that feels bigger every day.

When Pete — the estranged grandfather nobody talks about — turns up offering help, Johnny wants him gone. But grief has a way of turning boys into liars, anger into violence, and silence into something far more dangerous.

As old family secrets surface and the people around him refuse to let him disappear into himself, Johnny is forced to confront the one thing he cannot outrun:

the possibility that being saved might mean letting himself be known.

Raw, tender and unsentimental, How You Saved My Life is a powerful coming-of-age story about masculinity, loss, and the brutal, beautiful work of choosing life.

10% of all profits from this book are donated to 42nd Street, a Manchester-based charity supporting young people’s mental health.