Steady for This by Nathanael Lessore

Book of the Week: 3 March 2024

Cover illustration by Arnaud Derepper

A warm-hearted story about family and friendship that stands out for its colourful use of language.

Shaun and his best mate Shanks pride themselves on their rapping skills so when Mr Rix, their English teacher, asks everyone in class to tell him an interesting fact about themselves, Shaun thinks he’ll impress Tanisha (his latest crush) with the boast that he ‘… can MC off the dome’. He has also been working out twice a week, hoping that Tanisha will notice. As he says, ‘… it’s important to exercise your triceratops, your lorax and your Lithuania.’ Shaun has a bottomless supply of malapropisms. Grudgingly, Tanisha agrees to go on a date to the cinema with him, but he not only brings Shanks along for moral support, but has a strange notion about what constitues a cinema snack. No spoilers, but this scene made me laugh out loud.

Worse things are to happen when he and Shanks go viral for something so embarassing that they think they’ll never live it down and he, his mum and his brother are threatened with eviction from their home. Can Shaun solve their problems by winning the cash prize in a rap contest and will he ever restore his reputation in school?

It took me a couple of chapters to get used to the vocabulary when I first started reading this book, but Shaun is a funny and endearing narrator whose eternal optimism and sense of humour keep you reading.