Teen Couple Have Fun Outdoors

"This was in Sindhu’s original section of the submissions. She said she was reading it on an aeroplane and snorting, while everyone else around was looking at her, like: what are you on? That’s when we all decided to read it. Even if you don’t pick up all the many, many subtleties of in-jokes that are clearly in there, it’s just hilarious line for line. There isn’t an unfunny line in the book! So I think the writer is a comic genius, actually. It’s funny about the conservatism of parents. It’s funny about what it is to be young. It’s funny about sex—and being funny about sex is quite hard. Very few people pull that off. So I’m thrilled it was submitted, as I loved reading it and it was a complete discovery. I’ve read India before—she’s been shortlisted before—and, obviously, Bob Mortimer is one of the country’s greatest living performers. But this came, to me, from nowhere and I just loved it. I think we all did. I can’t imagine anybody not finding this book laugh-out-loud funny. It’s also quite short. Quite a few of the shortlisted books are, this year. So I’ve read it two or three times and laughed with new delight each time at things that I missed the last time. It was also a wonderful reminder of what it is to be young again."