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Suburb: A Novel
Tom Fray is desperate to put on a rucksack and live a life of adventure and freedom. To do so, he returns home – to a semi-detached house stuck in the middle of cul-de-sac - to earn some money.
Tom finds all the people he left behind living lives he doesn’t want for himself. His parents are trapped on life's treadmill and his fifteen-year-old brother is causing them problems. Tom’s ex-girlfriend is seeing someone else, but would rather be with him.
And then there's Kate, a married neighbour, who Tom shares a connection with. When the two start an affair, Tom's simple plan to escape becomes a lot more complicated.
Tom finds all the people he left behind living lives he doesn’t want for himself. His parents are trapped on life's treadmill and his fifteen-year-old brother is causing them problems. Tom’s ex-girlfriend is seeing someone else, but would rather be with him.
And then there's Kate, a married neighbour, who Tom shares a connection with. When the two start an affair, Tom's simple plan to escape becomes a lot more complicated.
- GenresFiction
343 pages, Kindle Edition
First published February 2, 2013
1 person is currently reading
21 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews
May 6, 2014
This Review From Melissa.
Whether you’ve been to university or not, you will relate to this novel. All of the characters are truly recognisable; you will feel like you personally know each and every one, and remember the relationships you had with your own real life versions. The setting is reminiscent of everyone’s hometown, and despite the fact I’ve never visited Manchester I could picture each and every scene in my head. The dynamic between Tom and his friends, parents, sibling and one woman who turns into something a little bit more, plus the problems and emotional turmoil that they go through, manages to be riveting yet oddly comforting at the same time.
This isn’t an exciting book. Tom’s story is not going to blow your mind, and there are no big surprises or amazing adventures, but what it does have is LIFE. It’s a coming of age book, for those in their twenties who haven’t quite made it to adulthood. Halfway through reading this book I logged in to my Internet banking and transferred £200 over to pay off some of my student overdraft, because it really made me think about MY life and where I want to be right now. Give it a go – you never know what impact it might have on you!
Whether you’ve been to university or not, you will relate to this novel. All of the characters are truly recognisable; you will feel like you personally know each and every one, and remember the relationships you had with your own real life versions. The setting is reminiscent of everyone’s hometown, and despite the fact I’ve never visited Manchester I could picture each and every scene in my head. The dynamic between Tom and his friends, parents, sibling and one woman who turns into something a little bit more, plus the problems and emotional turmoil that they go through, manages to be riveting yet oddly comforting at the same time.
This isn’t an exciting book. Tom’s story is not going to blow your mind, and there are no big surprises or amazing adventures, but what it does have is LIFE. It’s a coming of age book, for those in their twenties who haven’t quite made it to adulthood. Halfway through reading this book I logged in to my Internet banking and transferred £200 over to pay off some of my student overdraft, because it really made me think about MY life and where I want to be right now. Give it a go – you never know what impact it might have on you!
March 7, 2022
Review originally published on konfrankowski.com
In many respects, life is like a long walk through a forest. We either choose the beaten path and follow all the signposts or swerve into the wild, led by the glimpse of light and a sliver of blue guiding us to what we hope will be our very own happy ending to an exciting adventure. Whichever path we choose, we cannot be sure we’ll ever reach the destination we have in mind setting off.
Steven Kedie’s novel, Suburb, is a thought-provoking, extremely relatable coming of age story that is both deliciously uncomplicated and satisfyingly complex at the same time. Kedie is candid and open about the internal dialogue of a young man who finds himself caught out on the unavoidable yet petrifying transition from adolescence to adulthood. The author openly talks about the growing pains we go through as we embark on the journey towards the rest of our life. A journey for which no amount of studying, conversations with parents, mates and peers, music albums and YouTube videos can ever prepare us. In this gripping novel, Steven Kedie methodically outlines the thought process of every young man who ever found himself in this strange limbo of not being a fully grown man but not being a spotty, gangly teenager anymore either.
You see, my Faithful Reader, I’ve been there myself, and perhaps this is why I found Suburb to be such a compelling read. Even the central motif of the novel played a significant part in my personal journey to self-discovery. A journey, let me hasten to add, I still am on. And I will challenge every man out there who tells me they know themselves, or they’ve got it all worked out. This is one of the reasons Suburb is such a powerful story. It startles you to think about your own life. Where you currently are, where you came from, what’s next on your travels. As we watch Tom getting excited about the prospect of travelling around the world, we cannot but help but take stock of our own lived experience and put it against the harsh backdrop of everyday reality. The clichés mentioned in the book are as subjective as the intrinsic need for standing out and achieving something. The novel reminds us that everyone has different goals and dreams and there is no right or wrong way to feel about who we are and what we want to achieve. Kedie reminds us that there’s no singular path to where we want to be, but also, nothing is a given and we must be prepared to change the direction of travel, especially when that decision is made for us.
Coming of age doesn’t come with a manual. Becoming an adult is riddled with bad decisions sprinkled with good times, and it’s never about ambivalence. Every decision, every experience, every conversation is a building block for here and now. In a world where we race ahead, it’s essential to stop, look around and take a breather. Perversely, pressing on is easier than standing still, but growth happens, even in stillness.
In many respects, life is like a long walk through a forest. We either choose the beaten path and follow all the signposts or swerve into the wild, led by the glimpse of light and a sliver of blue guiding us to what we hope will be our very own happy ending to an exciting adventure. Whichever path we choose, we cannot be sure we’ll ever reach the destination we have in mind setting off.
Steven Kedie’s novel, Suburb, is a thought-provoking, extremely relatable coming of age story that is both deliciously uncomplicated and satisfyingly complex at the same time. Kedie is candid and open about the internal dialogue of a young man who finds himself caught out on the unavoidable yet petrifying transition from adolescence to adulthood. The author openly talks about the growing pains we go through as we embark on the journey towards the rest of our life. A journey for which no amount of studying, conversations with parents, mates and peers, music albums and YouTube videos can ever prepare us. In this gripping novel, Steven Kedie methodically outlines the thought process of every young man who ever found himself in this strange limbo of not being a fully grown man but not being a spotty, gangly teenager anymore either.
You see, my Faithful Reader, I’ve been there myself, and perhaps this is why I found Suburb to be such a compelling read. Even the central motif of the novel played a significant part in my personal journey to self-discovery. A journey, let me hasten to add, I still am on. And I will challenge every man out there who tells me they know themselves, or they’ve got it all worked out. This is one of the reasons Suburb is such a powerful story. It startles you to think about your own life. Where you currently are, where you came from, what’s next on your travels. As we watch Tom getting excited about the prospect of travelling around the world, we cannot but help but take stock of our own lived experience and put it against the harsh backdrop of everyday reality. The clichés mentioned in the book are as subjective as the intrinsic need for standing out and achieving something. The novel reminds us that everyone has different goals and dreams and there is no right or wrong way to feel about who we are and what we want to achieve. Kedie reminds us that there’s no singular path to where we want to be, but also, nothing is a given and we must be prepared to change the direction of travel, especially when that decision is made for us.
Coming of age doesn’t come with a manual. Becoming an adult is riddled with bad decisions sprinkled with good times, and it’s never about ambivalence. Every decision, every experience, every conversation is a building block for here and now. In a world where we race ahead, it’s essential to stop, look around and take a breather. Perversely, pressing on is easier than standing still, but growth happens, even in stillness.
April 4, 2022
A young man eager to spend a year globetrotting after graduating university ends up learning more than a round-the-world journey could ever teach him while living back home with his parents as he saves up for his big trip. I easily recognized my young self in protagonist Tom. I felt for him as he fell for his older, married neighbor. I rooted for him as he struggled to keep his hopes for love and freedom afloat. William Feather famously stated "Finishing a good book is like leaving a good friend." Putting down SUBURB for the last time, I felt myself nodding a heartfelt farewell to Tom, wishing him the best. To judge from these pages, I think he'll do all right.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
May 12, 2024
Suburb tells the story of university graduate Tom and his plight to start living the life he dreams of. His plans are thrown into disarray when he becomes involved with his married neighbour.
I flew through Suburb in just a couple of evenings, it was such a compelling and enjoyable read.
The characters made this book really stand out for me. Steven Kedie has hit the mark perfectly with their relationships and interactions. There were moments that made me laugh and some that made me tear up.
As always I love a book set in Manchester because I enjoy the familiar setting! It was easy for me to imagine Tom's frustrations at being back in his home town.
I loved Running and Jumping also by the same author, so I had high hopes for more great writing in Suburb and was not disappointed. The story flows so well that you can't help but keep turning the pages.
This is an absorbing novel that you will be drawn into from the very start.
I flew through Suburb in just a couple of evenings, it was such a compelling and enjoyable read.
The characters made this book really stand out for me. Steven Kedie has hit the mark perfectly with their relationships and interactions. There were moments that made me laugh and some that made me tear up.
As always I love a book set in Manchester because I enjoy the familiar setting! It was easy for me to imagine Tom's frustrations at being back in his home town.
I loved Running and Jumping also by the same author, so I had high hopes for more great writing in Suburb and was not disappointed. The story flows so well that you can't help but keep turning the pages.
This is an absorbing novel that you will be drawn into from the very start.
April 1, 2014
Reading the blurb of suburb left me intrigued and had me wanting to read it straight away.
Suburb is a hard book to label genre-wise. It’s almost New Adult fiction but also a coming of age story about finding yourself and also has elements of a rom-com in it. Suburb tells the story of Tom, a uni graduate who has just moved back home, who wants to start saving enough to go travelling. When Tom arrives back at home, he has to settle back into family life and finds the transition from independent adult to part of a family unit hard to deal with. Then he meets neighbour Kate, ten years older than him and married. What follows is a plot full of moral questions, difficult realities and the realisation that growing up is not easy.
I have to say, when I started reading, I wasn’t expecting much. That sounds like an awful thing to say but I wasn’t sure 150 pages would be enough to tell a story properly and get me involved in the characters’ lives. However, like always, I needn’t have worried for Steven does a brilliant job of telling this story. The plot is very well planned and left me guessing right until the very end, the characters were really well formed and every single one developed very well over the course of the novel, and the pacing was brilliant.
Steven has a great writing style – he pulls you into the world of the characters and doesn’t let you go easily which meant I devoured this book in just two sittings. He also deals with some interesting issues throughout the plot: adultery, drugs, sex, first love but manages to deal with them sensibly and compassionately. I have to say I always love a book that contains an affair, something about them just compels me to read, and I found that aspect of this book my favourite.
Tom is an interesting protagonist. At times I really felt I could connect with him and other times I found him to be challenging but even when he was challenging me as a reader, I found him to be a brilliant narrator, even if I didn’t agree with all of his behaviour.
The one thing that struck me most about this book though is that people that will be able to relate to it. Growing up, going to uni, trying to work out what to do with your life…something nearly everyone has experienced in their life and something that will attract readers to this book. It was almost reassuring to read a book about someone who is similar in age to me that has the same worries about not being able to find their place in the world and worries that they’re never going to become something and I think that was what I enjoyed about this book most.
There were a few grammatical errors here and there and the occasional missing comma but these little mistakes weren’t big enough to detract from my overall enjoyment of the book.
A strong debut about growing up, figuring out who you are and learning from your mistakes.
Suburb is a hard book to label genre-wise. It’s almost New Adult fiction but also a coming of age story about finding yourself and also has elements of a rom-com in it. Suburb tells the story of Tom, a uni graduate who has just moved back home, who wants to start saving enough to go travelling. When Tom arrives back at home, he has to settle back into family life and finds the transition from independent adult to part of a family unit hard to deal with. Then he meets neighbour Kate, ten years older than him and married. What follows is a plot full of moral questions, difficult realities and the realisation that growing up is not easy.
I have to say, when I started reading, I wasn’t expecting much. That sounds like an awful thing to say but I wasn’t sure 150 pages would be enough to tell a story properly and get me involved in the characters’ lives. However, like always, I needn’t have worried for Steven does a brilliant job of telling this story. The plot is very well planned and left me guessing right until the very end, the characters were really well formed and every single one developed very well over the course of the novel, and the pacing was brilliant.
Steven has a great writing style – he pulls you into the world of the characters and doesn’t let you go easily which meant I devoured this book in just two sittings. He also deals with some interesting issues throughout the plot: adultery, drugs, sex, first love but manages to deal with them sensibly and compassionately. I have to say I always love a book that contains an affair, something about them just compels me to read, and I found that aspect of this book my favourite.
Tom is an interesting protagonist. At times I really felt I could connect with him and other times I found him to be challenging but even when he was challenging me as a reader, I found him to be a brilliant narrator, even if I didn’t agree with all of his behaviour.
The one thing that struck me most about this book though is that people that will be able to relate to it. Growing up, going to uni, trying to work out what to do with your life…something nearly everyone has experienced in their life and something that will attract readers to this book. It was almost reassuring to read a book about someone who is similar in age to me that has the same worries about not being able to find their place in the world and worries that they’re never going to become something and I think that was what I enjoyed about this book most.
There were a few grammatical errors here and there and the occasional missing comma but these little mistakes weren’t big enough to detract from my overall enjoyment of the book.
A strong debut about growing up, figuring out who you are and learning from your mistakes.
September 10, 2016
3.5
I was drawn to this book when I read the blurb. Without wanting to go into too much personal detail I wondered whether I would relate to Tom because of my own life after the past few years. I feel as if life is passing me by and I'm still doing the same stuff I was doing years ago with no sign of actually doing anything remotely worthwhile. I have lists of things I want to do, but not the get up and go to actually get them done. I often read books where the main character eventually escapes to go on and live a fantastic life but rather than giving me a kick up the arse it often leaves me a bit jealous!
I went to university but stayed at home and it's a massive regret of mine. I put in minimal effort and felt that had I moved away and had that responsibility I might have tried harder. That said I easily related to Tom and the characters in this book and the life they had at university. I could easily imagine the setting of the book because it was so similar to my own. Admittedly I didn't know what to expect from this book, as I said I wanted to read it for various reasons and didn't have particularly huge expectations but overall I did really enjoy the book.
It's a hard one to categorize genre wise, I don't know how I'd explain it in real life or indeed in this review except to say it's a real true to life, believable coming of age story that those finishing uni, or those already finished and wondering what to do with their lives will definitely be able to relate to. Story wise it's a bit more out there than most peoples lives but of course that's needed for the purpose of actually entertaining the reader. As a self published novel there were a few grammatical errors but the writing, characterisation and storytelling made it virtually unnoticeable. For anyone who has been to, is going to or has finished university I'd definitely reccommend picking up this book.
I was drawn to this book when I read the blurb. Without wanting to go into too much personal detail I wondered whether I would relate to Tom because of my own life after the past few years. I feel as if life is passing me by and I'm still doing the same stuff I was doing years ago with no sign of actually doing anything remotely worthwhile. I have lists of things I want to do, but not the get up and go to actually get them done. I often read books where the main character eventually escapes to go on and live a fantastic life but rather than giving me a kick up the arse it often leaves me a bit jealous!
I went to university but stayed at home and it's a massive regret of mine. I put in minimal effort and felt that had I moved away and had that responsibility I might have tried harder. That said I easily related to Tom and the characters in this book and the life they had at university. I could easily imagine the setting of the book because it was so similar to my own. Admittedly I didn't know what to expect from this book, as I said I wanted to read it for various reasons and didn't have particularly huge expectations but overall I did really enjoy the book.
It's a hard one to categorize genre wise, I don't know how I'd explain it in real life or indeed in this review except to say it's a real true to life, believable coming of age story that those finishing uni, or those already finished and wondering what to do with their lives will definitely be able to relate to. Story wise it's a bit more out there than most peoples lives but of course that's needed for the purpose of actually entertaining the reader. As a self published novel there were a few grammatical errors but the writing, characterisation and storytelling made it virtually unnoticeable. For anyone who has been to, is going to or has finished university I'd definitely reccommend picking up this book.
June 10, 2016
Suburb by Steven Kedie takes you by the hand and cleverly escorts you into the life of this twenty something year old guy fresh out of university. I loved this story and found myself wanting to not put the book down. Just an easy escape to something I knew was not going to be all that easy. I mean, there is a married woman involved so I was mentally preparing for drama to ensue. I just wasn't sure how ugly things would get and how things could possibly have a happy conclusion. Though I was hoping for a feel good though I was pretty certain there would be drastic turns in the road.
The coming-of-age story pulled on my heartstrings and the vivid picture was playing out before my eyes. There is something precious about this tale and at the same time something awfully tragic. I found myself emotional, involved and couldn't turn away. Really enjoyed the characters and the plot that had me intrigued, disturbed and transfixed.
The coming-of-age story pulled on my heartstrings and the vivid picture was playing out before my eyes. There is something precious about this tale and at the same time something awfully tragic. I found myself emotional, involved and couldn't turn away. Really enjoyed the characters and the plot that had me intrigued, disturbed and transfixed.
July 19, 2021
With Suburb being available in paperback and the author kindly supplying me with a copy I took the opportunity to reread and relive the emotional journey it takes you on.
The story of a young man finding his place in the world whilst understanding the boundaries and barriers that you put upon yourself if you don't try to achieve your dreams is brilliantly written. You can relate to a lot of Tom's feelings and thoughts, which in turn made me reflect on my life too.
Growing up is hard to do and Steve captures this perfectly. I thoroughly recommend his work.
The story of a young man finding his place in the world whilst understanding the boundaries and barriers that you put upon yourself if you don't try to achieve your dreams is brilliantly written. You can relate to a lot of Tom's feelings and thoughts, which in turn made me reflect on my life too.
Growing up is hard to do and Steve captures this perfectly. I thoroughly recommend his work.
June 30, 2016
A kindle freebie, really enjoyed it, even got a bit emotional at the end, I don't do tears normally
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