The Zigzag Road To Happy
Anita Heavens, 2015
Terrapin Publishing
224 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780993317842
Summary
Based on a true story.
This is the story of 16-year-old Nicky who, feeling suffocated by her dysfunctional family life, runs away to London, England of the 1960s.
We follow her ups and downs, her tears and her boundless enthusiasm as she encounters a variety of quirky characters, including an African snake dancer, biker gangs and crafty old men.
At the same time Nicky is on an internal journey, struggling to get a sense of her own identity. She remembers the feeling of being happy from when she was small, and is constantly trying to get back to that. Flashbacks tell us how that got lost and how she became a chameleon, trying to please everyone. This means others are able to control her, particularly some of the young men she meets.
The novel follows the zigs and zags of Nicky's journey, which is full of the unexpected, constantly leading the reader to wonder whether the next turn of the road could take her back to happy.