Description
Brendan's best friend, his only friend, is Ronan McCoy. He knows things about Brendan that no one else does: about his job washing the cars at Feeney's Funeral Home, and about the loneliness he sometimes feels even when surrounded by hundreds of others at school. But Brendan never told Ronan about the dark feeling that sits at the bottom of his stomach, the feeling that tells him something bad is coming. It never comes when Ronan's around.
Ronan is smart and sporty and popular, totally comfortable in himself — all the things that Brendan is not. But Ronan always makes him feel like a good friend, a good person, a better Brendan.
Standing at the school gates on the first day of term, the dark feeling begins to form in Brendan's stomach. When Ronan doesn't turn up, Brendan learns that something terrible happened to his best friend over the summer, and Brendan will never be the same again. Over the course of the final year of school, Brendan must learn to navigate the new shape of their friendship and find a place for himself in the world without Ronan to protect him.
A tender coming-of-age story about friendship, first love, loss, and facing the ultimate question: Who am I going to be? For fans of Douglas Stuart, Michael Magee, David Nicholls, and Andrew O'Hagan. The Ballad of Ronan McCoy is a beautifully written, tender coming-of-age story about friendship and first love, loss and letting go, and the hopes and fears of a young man standing on the cusp of the rest of his life.