‘We have almost no university literature in the UK. David Belbin is ideally placed to help start it off, and this book is a valuable addition to the YA range. Anyone who has been or is at university will relate to the characters. The full range of experiences from that first year after leaving home are all here – isolation, friendship, sex, loyalty, heartbreak, happiness, despair. Some succeed, some fail; of them struggle. The book is full of honesty and insight, and you never know until the very end who is going to make it and who is going to fall by the wayside.’ Melvin Burgess
‘Tense, honest and pacy – exactly the things you’d expect from a David Belbin novel. I couldn’t put it down.’ Nicola Monaghan
‘Fleeing a dysfunctional home life, an ex-boyfriend and an attempted rape, Allison starts her first year at Nottingham University intent on making a clean break from her past. As you might expect, sex, drugs, cheap booze and ill-advised games of ‘Truth and Dare’ form the meat of her extra-curricular education, but Belbin is too canny a writer to slew the book to devolve into nothing but the cliches of student life. Each chapter is a snapshot of Allison’s life over the course of her three year degree, and we see her grow, change and stumble onward through the extended adolescence to find some kind of maturity on the other side. Allison makes for a smart, vulnerable and honest protagonist, and Belbin depicts her unsteady emotional development with a sure voice and no trade of indulgence. Required reading for ex-students.’ Robin Lewis, LeftLion
‘A beautifully written page-turner, the most sensitive portrayal of uni life I’ve ever read. ‘Student’ is absolutely up to date, spot on and believable – touching. Best ‘campus’ novel in years.’ Jonathan Taylor, author of Entertaining Strangers & Take Me Home
