Simon has muscular dystrophy. He knows he will die quite soon, and his best friend Nathan knows it too. In a story that is both laugh-out-loud funny and deeply moving, we go through Simon and Nathan's last year together. They share a quirky sense of humour, an obsession with girls, and a determination to make Simon's life as normal as possible. Simon is popular, and his classmates feel perfectly at home with his disabilities. He is one of them, part of the gang, and their adventures - wheelchair and all - are completely believable. Without any sentimentality, we learn a great deal about the feelings and problems of an MD sufferer. Simon must accept he will never have relationships, that he will always have limitations, and Nathan must learn about grief and guilt in the knowledge of the joy still to come in his own life. Simon dies in the end. We have known all along that he will, but Nathan and the rest of us who read it are stronger because of knowing him. Outstanding.