SHORTLISTED FOR THE COSTA CHILDREN’S BOOK AWARD 2008

It’s January 1st, 2015, and the UK is the first nation to introduce carbon dioxide rationing, in a drastic bid to combat climate change. As her family spirals out of control, Laura Brown chronicles the first year of rationing with scathing abandon.

Will her mother become one with her inner wolf? Will her sister give up her weekends in Ibiza? Does her father love the pig more than her? Can her band the dirty angels make it big? And will Ravi Datta ever notice her? In these dark days, Laura deals with the issues that really matter: love, floods and pigs.

The Carbon Diaries 2015 is one girl’s drastic bid to stay sane in a world unravelling at the seams.

Praise for The Carbon Diaries 2015

‘An uproarious, scathing and pathos-filled romp – Adrian Mole does the apocalypse… Middle class-crisis comedy butts up against a vision of storms, riots and floods. There’s true horror amid the novel’s hilarious peaks.
The Financial Times

‘In this sharp but accessible satire, Saci Lloyd finds a real niche. It’s smart and sassy, as all th ebest teen diary novels are and it reveals Laura in all her adolescent glory – cross, bright, enthusiastic, insecure, selfish. But it’s also dark and dangerous. The picture of Britain as climate change really begins to take hold and carbon rationing comes is not something anyone is going to like much at all. Both strands of the book are entirely plausible and one makes the other of interest… It’s all pause for thought, but seen through the eyes of a girl who wants to snog the boy next door and make it big with her band, it doesn’t sound like a lecture. There are as many laughs as horrors in this book, and it strikes a very fine balance with poise and ease. The tone is chatty and idiomatic… It’s a very, very, very clever book, managing to sound warning bells whilst being one of the most entertaining teens books I’ve read in a while. Highly recommended.’
TheBookbag.co.uk

‘This book was gripping to read, and I genuinely couldn’t put it down once I started it. It was quite fascinating from the perspective of what our actions could do to the planet in the future. Great for budding eco-warriors – an engrossing and engaging novel’
The Independent on Sunday

‘It’s fresh, hugely impressive and very readable and deserves its place on the Costa shortlist – and naturally it’s on recycled paper. Definitely one for our supposedly environmentally- aware teenagers who can talk the talk but won’t always even walk.’
Irish Times

‘Introducing a great character and a topical subject told in a lively, varied format.’
Publishing News – Starred Choice

‘This is a charming tale full of laughs and angst, with a message both accessible and relevant to today’s teenagers’.
Publishing News – Bookseller’s Choice

‘Everyone who cares about the future of the planet should read this book!’
Costa judging panel

‘A perfect example of how to blend an important message into an entertaining novel.’
Independent ’50 Best Winter Reads’

‘A wonderfully mordant look at the coming environmental meltdown.’
Daily Telegraph

US edition
Deeply compulsive and urgently compulsory reading.
Booklist

‘The book refers to itself as an eco-thriller but it doesn’t present the usual over-the-top characters and hardly believable events of so many books in that genre. It works so well because of all the normal craziness of life that has nothing to do with the environmental disaster. The family crisis, the colorful supportive neighbors, the crush on the cute boy next door, and the triumphs of Laura’s band lend the story verisimilitude that will give it appeal far beyond the usual thriller for doom-and-gloom junkies.’
School Library Journal