For me, a really good book affects me on a personal level.

I'm not saying it has to make me go out and change the world, but it needs to stay with me.

Carry Me Down, the newest release from M.J. Hyland, who made her literary breakthrough with her 2004 release, How the Light Gets In, did just this for me.

It's a story, set in Ireland, about 10-year-old John Egan, a troubled boy whose early onset of puberty finds him searching for an identity.

John's situation is complicated even more by his deadbeat father and unstable mother, to whom John has an unnatural attraction.

On top of being thrust into adolescence, John has the rare gift of being a human lie detector, which proves to be both a blessing and a curse.

Hyland does a fantastic job of demonstrating John's confusion with life sexually, emotionally, socially and physically, allowing the reader to remember his or her own adolescence and to sympathize with John's awkwardness.

The most interesting aspects of the novel, however, are the supporting characters in the book, including John's parents and grandmother. I found it hard to decide if I liked them or not, and my opinion changed consistently chapter by chapter, making it hard to put the book down. Hyland's simple prose made the book easy to read, but her complex ideas definitely lay a good foundation for further discussion; a great read for those who enjoy debating novels.

The one thing that did bother me was the ending, and without giving anything away, I found it almost too simple and tidy. The novel seems to keep adding more levels page by page only to suddenly stop too abruptly.

Hyland writes a novel that, despite falling under the fiction category, seems so real it reads much like a memoir. So if you're wondering what to do with that Barnes & Noble gift card you got for Christmas, look for Carry Me Down, scheduled to make its debut on the bookshelves early next month. Grade: A-

-- Reviewed by Megan Rundle