Kate and Albert, are not yet the last two human beings on Earth, but Albert is hopeful. The secluded communal farm they grew up on is disintegrating, taking their parents' marriage with it. They both try to escape: Kate, at 17, to a suburbia she reads about, and Albert, 11, into preparations for the end of the world.

Features Oliver Tate, 15. Convinced that his father is depressed (Depression comes in bouts. Like boxing. Dad is in the blue corner) and his mother is having an affair with her capoeira teacher, a hippy-looking twonk, he embarks on a misguided campaign to bring the family back together.

The dryly precocious, soon-to-be-fifteen-year-old hero of this engagingly offbeat debut novel, Oliver Tate lives in the seaside town of Swansea, Wales. At once a self-styled social scientist, a spy in the baffling adult world surrounding him, and a budding, hormone-driven emotional explorer, Oliver is stealthily (and perhaps a bit more nervously than he’d ever admit) nosing his way forward through the murky and uniquely perilous waters of adolescence. His objectives? Uncovering the secrets behind his parents’ teetering marriage, unraveling the mystery that is his alluring and equally...