Today I’m back to writing my reviews and this is one particular book that is quite close to my heart. It’s been quite a while since I read it over 3 months ago and it still lives with me even now. It explores something that I feel isn’t in YA book very often, autism. So today I have my review and Cait was very kind enough to let me interview her for my blog too.
The Boy Who Steals Houses by C.G. Drews Published by Orchard Books on April 4, 2019
Genres: Contemporary
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Can two broken boys find their perfect home?
Sam is only fifteen but he and his autistic older brother, Avery, have been abandoned by every relative he's ever known. Now Sam's trying to build a new life for them. He survives by breaking into empty houses when their owners are away, until one day he's caught out when a family returns home. To his amazement this large, chaotic family takes him under their wing - each teenager assuming Sam is a friend of another sibling. Sam finds himself inextricably caught up in their life, and falling for the beautiful Moxie.
But Sam has a secret, and his past is about to catch up with him.
Two brothers Sam and Avery just want to find a home, to find a family that accepts them as who they are. Sam’s older brother, should be looking after him, but he has autism, so he Sam from a very young age has looked after him. Their father couldn’t control his anger or violence towards them when their mother left. So Sam and Avery are dumped with their aunt, who still can’t handle them. They go to school, but Sam is still trying to protect Avery so when he gets in trouble with the police, he takes Avery and runs away. They find empty houses, people who have left it, on holiday, vacant and take the food and try to make this as home of their own, no violence just a fresh start. Avery hates it when he results to violence, so Avery runs away. Sam has to find another empty house for him to come too. When he comes across an empty yellow house, his mistaken to find that the next morning the family have returned, he finds himself blending in rather than being caught out. But there comes a time when time catches up with you, family catches up with you and Sam has to make a choice between a girl in the new family he likes and the brother that needs him and has always protected.
Two boys who just wants a home. Two boys who’s childhood has been riddled with violence, abuse and now only know violence. It breaks your heart, it breaks my heart that the only way he feels he protects his brother is through violence. People can’t seem to understand why Avery was the way he is, his ticks, his blunt honest and lack of emotional barriers. How he can’t seem to fit in, he’s the one that stands out because he’s different. To some people abnormally different. So when Sam sees Avery punished for who he is, he will do anything to protect his brother by saving his favourite truck from his father if it means getting beaten up. He would take a punch or more to protect Avery from everything and anyone which ultimately leads him into trouble.
This book has so many emotional layers that tears you up inside. Like I said earlier this book is dear to me in a way that I know truth to words that Cait has written in this book. I’ve worked around autism and special needs all my life. My mum works in a school, and my school was across the road from it so I would always help out. Even now I help out at summer fair etc. supporting a school that helps, supports and believes in their students – the total opposite of this book.
This book is a brutal read, this is ultimately the real world of how we are treated, the lack of understanding and how autism is represented. Cait Drews is brave and honest to write such a book close to her and her own experiences. She didn’t sugarcoat it, show wrote it how it is. The Boy Who Steals Houses is an incredibly moving and poignant book representing autism in its dark and yet hopeful way. It’s not about changing you, your personality, we are in a time where the world need to conform, to change with us.
Interview with Paper Fury aka CG Drews
Hi Cait, thank you so much for coming on my blog. I absolutely loved The Boy Who Steals Houses my first book of yours.
Thanks so much for having me on your lovely blog! And I’m so glad you got a chance to read my book. I have all the warm happy feels!
Where did the idea stem from to create The Boy Who Steals Houses?
It came from a pile of inspiration honestly. First and foremost: I wanted to write a Goldilocks retelling and as I started to develop the idea (spurred on by how often I go walking in my neighbourhood and see empty houses…which leads me to wonder what would happen if a teen broke in, not to steal, but to pretend it was their home?) I knew I wanted it to be genderbent and have a contemporary setting with a focus on families!
You said to me that writing about two boys who needed to change their environment and not themselves, is that what you were inspired to create this story?
That’s definitely one of the messages I wanted to weave into this book. Sam (and also Avery) are by no means perfect, and Sam also has a lot of past problems to face and deal with. He’s trying to outrun secrets, but his mistakes are also eating him up inside. But when it comes to Sam’s anxiety disorder and Avery’s autism — I wanted to write a book where those where not the “villains” of the narrative.
What was your writing process like during TBWSH?
I wrote it in a whirlwind 3 days for NaNoWriMo 2016! And WOW it was a mess. But a loveable mess. I stashed it away in the depths of my laptop, unsure if it’d ever become anything…and then about 6 months later I started edits and gradually turned it into the story you see today.
What’s your journey been to like to being a published writer?
Lots of ups and downs! I’m ridiculously lucky to have gotten this opportunity to have two books published by Hachette UK. It’s been my dream and a goal I’ve worked deliriously hard at for the last 10 years. So finally getting to see my work in bookstores? Surreal and amazing! But writing will never stop being hard and rejections are beasts…so it has it’s low moments. But I’m glad the hardwork payed off!
Did you find putting experiences, your own voice hard to put into words? Did you feel a pressure to write it right?
Definitely! I sometimes draw off my own experiences to work into novels, but I don’t like to write “me” into them, so I’m careful to create storylines separate from my own life. But when tackling things like mental illness or autism (both of which I have), there is pressure to write it accurately and with lots of heart.
I’ve worked around autism all my life as my mum works with ASD/ASC I felt that representation of autism was very real, did you feel a lot of pressure to make it come across that way!?
I confess I did a bit! Even though I’m autistic myself, every autistics’ experiences are so diverse and incredibly subjective. Writing Avery (and also Sam, as an undiagnosed autistic) was at the same time therapeutic as it was nerve-wracking. I wanted people to love my autistic boys, not judge them or decide they were “unrelatable”. I wrote autism in the most authentic way I knew how and I’m really pleased, after copious revisions and advice from other autistics, with the finished book.
This was my first book with autism at the heart of it, do you have any book recommendations similar to this genre?
I also love Things I Should Have Known by Claire LaZebnik, Kids Like Us by Hilary Reyl, and The Kiss Quotient by Helen Hoang!
What is it that you wish readers to take away from The Boy Who Steals Houses?
It’s a story that, at its core, is about searching for a place to belong and people who will fight for you. So I want readers to close the book and feel worthy of all those things: being loved, feeling safe, and finding people in this world who will love you no matter what.
