Have you come across such well-written books which completely pull you in, which you can't tear yourself away from, and if you somehow manage to put them down, they draw you back like a magnet? They tell you about some mystery, which invades our thoughts, not allowing us to concentrate. We have to turn the next page, even though another night hour has passed.

My daughter definitely reads the most in our family and her bookcase, especially on holiday, is the best stocked. Sometimes I borrow the most interesting books from her, and sometimes I buy books which I will gladly read myself on the pretext of providing my daughter with books. This time my daughter borrowed quite a lot of books from our friendly library. Among the many interesting choices I found the book "Lumber room, in the middle of nowhere" by Agata Mańczyk. I began to read and I lost myself completely.

Though it is a novel for young people, I found in it everything that I like in novels: well defined, colourful characters, fast-flowing action and an engaging mystery. It is good that the book is a little over 500 pages long, because otherwise there would be so many more stolen moments.

We meet the main character at a disruptive moment of her life. Her parents' divorce turns the well-organised world of sixteen-year-old Maryla upside down. She must move from Warsaw to the tiny town of Tomaszów, leaving behind what is important for her: friends, love and school. Hope for a positive beginning in the new place bursts like a soap bubble after a meeting with her grandmother and great-grandmother. It turns out that even though they don't know Maryla, they truly hate her. For a teenager, who never liked to stand out, starting a new school isn't easy. But the most irritating thing is it seems that everybody in the town knows the dark mystery of the teenager's family.

Agata Mańczyk wrote an amazing story about four generations of women who should be closer to each other than to anyone else. They should support each other, but tragic coincidences mean that their fates become muddled and their relationships become cold, like the house they live in. "Lumber room" is also a book about friendship. For my generation, which finished school before the internet era, it is friendship based on meetings, talking till dawn without needing FB, joint projects and parties.

At times "Lumber room" was very predictable; nevertheless, I couldn't tear myself away. It is a book for teens after all, even though it's hard for my daughter to believe I was also sixteen years old once. In the library there was a huge queue of people waiting for our copy of "Lumber room", and I really don't marvel at it.

I recommend it!

Read also:
Tappi – my son's new friend
„Zapach domów innych ludzi" ("The smell of other people's houses") Bonnie-Sue Hitchcock
"The Girl Who Drank the Moon" Kelly Barnhill