ONCE IN A while a book comes along that captures with the lightest yet most precise of touches all the wide-eyed wonder and fear of youth.

Cath is a thirteen-year-old girl sent off by her diplomat father and socialite mother to a Catholic boarding school. Her sister, Very, lives in London, an art student thriving on the fringes of the Seventies punk scene. Cath's first few weeks under the strict regime of the nuns are filled