Growing up can feel like a death sentence. Life in a troubled neighbourhood demands too much too young. But Sonny wouldn’t really know. Watching the world from her bedroom window, she exists only in second-hand romance novels and falls for any fast-food employee who happens to spare her a glance. Everything changes with the return of Vince, a boy who became a legend after he was hauled away in handcuffs at fourteen. Sonny and Vince used to be childhood friends. But with all that happened in-between, childhood seems so long ago. It will take two years of juvie, an inebriated grandmother and a porn stash for them to meet again. The Coconut Children is an urgent, moving and wise debut from a young and gifted storyteller. Friendship in children -- Fiction. | Self-actualization (Psychology) -- Fiction. | Australian