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|title=How not to Disappear

|author=Clare Furniss

|reviewer=Jill Murphy

|date=January 2016

|isbn=1471120309

}}

Hattie is having rather a miserable summer. Both her best friends, Reuben and Nat, are away, living it up in the south of France and Edinburgh respectively. Hattie, meanwhile, is stuck at home babysitting her younger siblings and working at a burger joint. It's hardly glamorous and it's very dispiriting to be the one waiting at home for the odd text or email from friends who are having the times of their lives. Ho hum.

I enjoyed the honesty of it and the way in which sadness and joy are presented as two sides of the same coin. I enjoyed the acknowledgement that love doesn't always conquer all. I had a deep appreciation for the sympathetic presentation of dementia - we need more of that in our ageing society. But mostly I enjoyed the growing relationship between two women, one looking back over a life and one looking towards a life yet to come.

Remember [[The Year of the Rat by Clare Furniss |The Year of the Rat]]? It was great, wasn't it? This is Furniss's second novel, so she has a lot to live up to. And live up, she does. I ''loved'' this story and was thoroughly absorbed from start to finish. I also shed a tear or two. Or even three or four. It's lovely.

You might also want to look at [[Unbecoming by Jenny Downham ]], which also deals with a long-lost relative with dementia and a family crisis. It's lovely, too, as it gradually unravels the secrets of the past and problems of the present.

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