This book shows an intimate snapshot of the lives of four friends who grew up together in a block of flats in Brighton. It is beautifully evocative and nostalgic, and tackles friendship, inequity, queerness and toxic relationships whilst showcasing the love all the characters have for each other throughout. I especially connected with Little Boxes as I live in Brighton and the real references peppered throughout the narrative were brilliant. It shows the realities of living in a seaside town, the good and the bad!

I blitzed through this book over the weekend as I just could not get enough. Light and witty I enjoyed every second. Thanks to the publisher and NetGalley for providing me with a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

Loved the title of this book which describes both the boxes we put ourselves in as our personality develops and the little Brighton flats of a group of early 20s friends whose relationships lives and friendships are covered in the book
The book is grungy grey depressing and oh so relevant and perceptive .Britain’s poor young people aren’t often the subject of novels and it was lovely to see this book
Gay straight male female the relationships vary from friendship to dislike to love just as relationships do in close groups of friends .I loved this element of the book
I loved the fact that the book moves forward in a largely positive fashion so that the general tone is not as depressing as you first may think .The optimistic end was fantastic
The prose is beautiful perceptive the characters real and completely 3 dimensional
I suppose you could call the book Brighton’s Train spotting

Little Boxes is a coming of age novel about four friends in their early twenties. Leah, Matthew, Nathan, and Jay have grown up together in Brighton, seeing well beyond the tourist vision of the city. When Matthew's grandfather, a well-known figure in their block of flats, dies, their connections with each other and their current lives and dreams are put under strain, and Matthew starts to discover more about his grandfather's past and their similarities.

This is a quietly understated novel which is at times very sad, both in terms of loss and of how the characters see themselves and are trapped by their situations. Leah and Matthew in particular are given rich backstories and shown to start to understand more about themselves and the world, which is a satisfying trajectory, and though most of what Jay does is frustrating for the reader, especially in his treatment of Leah, his narrative shows that people change as they grow up, but sometimes need to keep changing. Nathan was more stable and less fleshed out than the others, but it was interesting to see the different group dynamics. The sadness of Matthew and his grandfather never talking properly to each other about their sexualities in particular left the book with a melancholy tone that wasn't quite dispelled by the progression that the ending gave some of the characters.

A look not only at growing up in your early twenties but also lesser considered aspects of living in a seaside town, Little Boxes is a book that simmers under the surface, slowly playing out the narrative of a summer and a death that changes everything.

I really enjoyed reading this book it was really well written with characters that I connected with straight away some in a positive way some in a negative way. It was more emotive than I expected and had a rawness to it that I loved. A great read