Just Like Tomorrow

It's not easy being Doria. As if life weren't hard enough on a high-rise estate in the suburbs of Paris, her dad has decided to go back to Morocco because he wants a son, and her mother doesn't speak French. On top of that, her teachers think she's only fit to study hairdressing, her favourite soap star's gay and her one friend on the estate, dope-smoking Hamoudi, is too bound up in his girlfriend to have time to chat. In fact, the only person who really listens to her is psychologist Mrs Burlaud and she's pretty old ... Still, Doria refuses to get depressed. There are plenty of things to laugh about. And as Hamoudi says, even though he jacks cars and deals drugs, she's 'got to keep believing, OK?' In this brilliantly funny and touching first novel, Faïza Guène has created a character to fall in love with. It's hard to imagine a more appealing guide to life on a housing estate than fifteen-year-old Doria. She's got a wickedly scathing sense of humour, an intolerance of hypocrisy and a love of observing people. From stingy Aziz who owns the local shop to Rachida the neighbourhood gossip, no one on the estate escapes Doria's sharp eye. It is only herself she can't quite nail clown. As Doria grapples with the parade of social workers trying to sort her out, Faïza Guène shows us all the dangerous divisions at work in modern society with a remarkable deftness and lightness of touch.