Book Review: Ketchup Clouds, Annabel Pitcher

Ketchup Clouds, Annabel Pitcher, Orion 2012

Teenager Zoe writes letters to a man on death row, a man who killed his wife, someone you would expect her to have little in common with.  The truth is, Zoe knows more about love, and death, than most people would give her credit for.  Ketchup Clouds is the outpouring of her deepest darkest secret.

Zoe meets Aaron at a party and there is an instant connection but, blurred by alcohol and a mass of bodies surrounding them, they lose each other.  She finds herself with Max, the most popular boy at school.  Before she can realize the connection between Aaron and Max, she has become Max’s girlfriend.

Although she has what every girl at school wants – to be the girlfriend of the coolest boy there, Zoe can’t help the tug of her heart strings pulling her away from Max and towards Aaron.  From what she has seen Aaron has a girlfriend too, and telling him how she feels isn’t an option.

Throughout the book is threaded the feeling that something tragic has happened, and we are looking back at events, though we do not find out Zoe’s secret until the end – and I won’t spoil it for potential readers except to say I had a lump in my throat, and could hardly see through my tears while reading.

I had not read anything by Annabel Pitcher before Ketchup Clouds, but now want to read her debut ‘My Sister Lives on the Mantelpiece.’  Writing for Young Adults, but easily enjoyed by adults of all ages, she captures perfectly the feelings a teenage girl has at school; wanting to be liked, pressure to fit in, and the spirit crushing lows of the loss of first love.

More than anything, Ketchup Clouds shows us how try as we might, we cannot tear ourselves away from the meeting of souls, but if we do not consider the consequences, in the words of William Shakespeare “These violent delights have violent ends.”