'Up until now, Marv’s uneventful life has revolved around playing football with his best mate, Jimmy. But things take a turn for the dramatic with the arrival at school of new girl Carly Stonehouse.
'Marv falls in love at first sight, but there’s no way a girl like Carly will ever look at him. Unless, perhaps, he enlists help from a very unusual source.
'Follow Marv on his hilariously agonising quest for love, featuring his Croc-loving dad, a fast-food addicted musical idol from the past and some of the most cringeworthy song lyrics you might ever have heard …'
There has been this weird rule that romantic comedies have to be for women and girls, that somehow the pursuit of love is a female ideal, and not something that 'real men' should concern themselves with. Of course, it's down to toxic masculinity and the idea that men have to be stoic, emotionless people who shouldn't be in touch with their feelings, and as such rom coms get marketed to people other than men. Thankfully, this is changing a lot. The toxic masculinity traits and societal expectations are changing, and we're living more in a time where rom coms can actually be for guys. This is what Northern Soul is tapping into, the angst of teenage love and the desire to have your hearts desires fulfilled from the perspective on an awkward teenage boy.
Northern Soul follows Marvin, a boy who lives with his single father, never having really known his mother. His dad is a nice guy, though Marv thinks him a bit weird. He works in a music shop and loves old music (which Marv hates), and he has an unhealthy love from crocs. Other than that, though, Marv is living a fairly simple life, hanging with his friends, playing video games, and loving football. However, that all changes when Carly moves into the same street as him, and starts going to his school.
Marv is instantly in love with Carly, and just wants to get to know her better. He's so awkward that he's convinced that he's scared her off the first time that he speaks to her. When he goes home he finds his father listening to Otis Redding, and discovers music that speaks to his heart and the emotions he's experiencing. When he wishes that Otis, who clearly knows all about love, would tell him what to do it summons the invisible ghost of the singer, who makes it his mission to help Marv win over Carly; a mission that is not destined to go well.
Perhaps the best word to describe a lot of this book, and what Marv goes through, would be 'cringe'. It's very much an accurate depiction of teenage first love, with instant infatuation, making a fool of yourself repeatedly, and not always being able to pick up on the obvious signs around you. To say that it resurfaced some of my own awkward memories would be underselling it, and I spent the night after reading it with my head in my hand remembering what I was like at that age. Phil Earle manages to capture this feeling so well with the story that I wouldn't be surprised if he was drawing from similar experiences himself.
But, this book isn't aimed at us adults who have already been through this and are thanking god that our embarrassing stuff happened before you could record everything on a phone and share it to social media (we did our embarrassing stuff in private and only had word of mouth to worry about). Instead, this book is aimed at younger teen readers, readers who are probably going through similar situations to Marv; minus the ghost of Otis Redding helping them out that is. And I think that teens will enjoy this read. Marv is a nice guy, and I think other boys in his age range reading this will likely be able to identify with him. He's something of an everyman, and his shy awkwardness around girls will be something that most young readers will know all too well.
The book also contains a fair amount of comedy that I think will appeal, weird situations that are on one hand so awkward that you just want to look away, yet are also funny enough to keep you reading. Earle injects a good amount of humour into things, and it definitely makes the book feel really charming and takes the edge off some of the situations. But it's also got some good messages in there too, messages about not trying to hard, about not trying to make weird grand gestures to win someone over, but just being yourself and being confident in who you are. These are hard learned lessons for Marv, but hopefully reading about it will help those picking up the book to get there without so many bumps along the way.
Northern Soul is a bit of a silly, often ridiculous romantic comedy, but one that's quite harmless and even quite charming. It will appeal to older readers who have been there and done that and are glad those days are behind them, and it will likely be loved by those who are going through this difficult time themselves.
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