It starts with a fever, a water tower and a can of cherry cola. I know, what on earth! But when Nick Gardner, king of high fevers, hallucinates while sick and believes he is being chased by a big can of cherry cola, he makes his way up a water tower and then falls.

It’s from here that everything starts to change.

His best friend, the Scoot, has a rare illness that will take his life way too early, and Nick’s morbidly obese father has decided to do the ‘fat man walk’, walking all the way to New York in a bid to change his ways.

With his family falling apart and the Scoot getting worse, Nick and Jaycee, a quirky girl from school, go on a road trip to try and fulfil the Scoot’s dying wish – to find his dad. Laced with Star Wars references and entwined with the novel Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck (note, read Of Mice and Men first!), The Pull of Gravity is a heartwarming story that will appeal to good readers wanting something a little different.

Katherine Dretzke