Saving 6 by Chloe Walsh is the continuation of the popular book series Boys of Tommen. The first two books, Binding 13 and Keeping 13, follow Shannon Lynch and Johnny Kavanagh. Saving 6 follows Joey Lynch, Shannon’s older brother, as well as Aoife (E-fa) Malloy. This series is based in Ireland, so the names and places are sometimes hard to pronounce, and the schooling system is different.
Saving 6 takes place during the six years that Joey and Aoife are in secondary school. They meet on the first day of year one. They are twelve years old, and Joey is immediately enraptured by Aoife, but nothing comes of it straight away and Aoife starts dating a guy named Paul. Throughout the book, Joey and Aoife become very close friends, seeing each other at school and at Aoife’s dad’s garage where Joey works.
Before going into this series/review, note that there are very dark topics discussed and the general content is for 16+ ages. Mentionable trigger warnings are substance abuse, alcoholism, mental and physical abuse from a parent, mentions of rape and sexual assault (off-page), and mental illness. The main content of the book is how the characters deal and grow together while they struggle with the aforementioned issues but the novel isn’t too graphic or disturbing. Make sure to read the author’s note before reading as well.
Joey has an extremely rough home life. He has six siblings, Darren, the eldest, Shannon, slightly younger than Joey, Tadgh, Ollie, and Sean who is born around the middle of Saving 6 but has already been introduced because Binding 13 (the first book) takes place after Saving 6. Joey’s father is abusive and an alcoholic, and his main target is Joey. Joey takes place as the protector in the family, he lets the young ones stay in his room and guards them with his life.
The title of this novel, Saving 6, is that Joey plays Hurling for school and he is number 6. This keeps on theme with the first two books because Johnny plays rugby and he is number 13. Saving 6 calls to Aoife attempting to save Joey from himself. This is marketed as a sports romance but it is so much more.
Because of the position he has been placed in, he struggles very much with dealing with his issues and feelings, and rather than continuing to feel the hurt and anger he chooses to turn to drugs. Obviously,that is an issue and as the novel progresses the reader watches Joey self-destruct.
Aoife tries to help and remove him from his father and house as much as possible but there is only so much a teenage girl can do against a world of problems.
Aoife is the light in Joey’s life, the one beacon in the darkness of his life and she can help him through some of his issues and pull him out of those self-destructive habits.
Saving 6 is dark and beautifully tragic. A story of love, pain and growth. It’s the intrusion of the minds of people who struggle and how they deal with it or in some cases don’t deal with it and let the darkness consume them, nearly drowning out the flame of light and hope in the process.
Joey is a distraught kid, and the reader is affected as well in the aftermath of his struggles. The novel is dual POV so you get both sides of the story from Aoife and Joey.
What I loved about this book is that it made you feel what the characters were feeling. Not to the extent that they were of course, but say that Joey had gotten into a fight (this happened quite often) reading it from Aoife’s perspective, you felt almost as she did. Because of this, the 600+ pages (depending on what copy you read) go by very quickly.
I enjoyed Chloe Walsh’s writing style, she was able to write about a found family that I believed became a family, and the love and pain were so real.
As of now, there are four books: Binding 13, Keeping 13, Saving 6, and Redeeming 6. The fifth book, Taming 7, comes out in April of 2024.
