Splinters

Nominated for the Carnegie Medal for Writing 2025

Jean Sylvester is a typical, over-thinking adolescent who is convinced that life isn't fair and who wishes that hers were different.

However, a painful experience with parallel realities will ultimately teach Jean one of the key tenets of adult life: while life involves her, it's not always all about her.

Jean’s challenges intensify when she witnesses a traumatic accident and can't help but blame herself for the events leading up to it. In order to be free of the nightmare, Jean faces a choice: she can either spiral into despair or seek to reconcile herself with the fact that terrible things happen, and some of those things can't be changed - or can they?

Splinters is a multi-faceted story about many things. It explores the changes in our priorities as we move from childhood into our teenage years and towards adulthood… our longing for independence and freedom, our desire for ‘happy’ life, our vulnerability to change at a time of life when change is inevitable, and our tendency to suffer when things don't turn out as we hoped.

Along the way, it can seem like two things keep letting us down in life: high expectations and other people. Is that really true? And if it were, what might we do about it?

REVIEWS

“Five/five stars. Splinters strikingly and memorably reminds the reader that independence and happiness come as a result of resilience when life hurts us most and the knowledge that we are all ultimately responsible for our decisions. A better life isn’t about new, idealised landscapes: it rests on the ability to navigate challenge and disappointment to the brighter days beyond.” - Books for Keeps