Sixteen-year-old Ricky has a part time job in a cafe in a South Island town being transformed by tourism. Over several months, as Ricky bicycles through the town and his daily round, we bear witness to his friendships, the trial and hilarity of school, his stirrings for prickly Keri, the mystery of Mr Le Clair and his Cadillac, and the truth of his small family’s sadness. Aspiring is a wonderfully surprising YA novel from one of New Zealand’s most significant writers. Damien Wilkins’s comically poignant narrative showcases his considerable gifts for character and dialogue, and his wry take on human drives and frailties; for the first time, though, his focus is on a Kiwi boy in the full internal riot and uncertainty of adolescence.