This book is part of the Dymocks Reading Challenge for 2021. It goes into the Ask a Dymocks bookseller category. I was walking through Chadstone Shopping Centre three weeks ago before this latest outbreak of Covid shut everything down. I saw Dymocks and had to go in for photos. While there I spoke to the Trainee Bookseller , she was very young and had trouble understanding I was asking for a recommendation. Here’s this old lady asking a young chick for a recommendation, it must have seemed strange to her. I think she’s going to work well in Dymocks, this book is fantastic. I should ring them and give feedback.
Kyle Perry is a new author, this is his first published book. He lives in Tasmania and this is where the book is set. I’m pleased he’s planning on writing more books set in Tasmania, there’s so much scope.
Because it’s set in Tasmania there are a few things you need to know. Many people in the Northern Hemisphere may not know that we drive on the left side of the road, I don’t know why that feels so important that I should write it, but I have. There is some Australian Indigenous folklore in this book, not much but enough to give you a taste for more. Perry mentions Yowies, at one stage, which have their roots in Australian Indigenous oral history. Tasmania has some of the most beautiful countryside, one day I will go back. It is calm, peaceful but that just hides what white people have done to the Australian Indigenous there.
What you get in this book…
Some great writing. I struggled to put this book down and finished in less than a week, for a book that is 418 pages long that’s pretty good going for me. It was definitely a page turner.
Good characterisation. So many great characters who jumped off the pages at me. We had police, teens, parents…all of whom were fully fledged people with positive and negative characteristics.
The mountain. I almost felt as if I was there, on the mountain. One of the brief phrases that made me totally understand what the weather was doing was a remark about it being like Melbourne weather. If you’re a Melburnian you’ll understand our four seasons in one day. I’ve been running messages on summer days as the temperature has dropped from 40°C to 20°C in half an hour, each time I emerged from the air conditioned car I could feel it considerably cooler than it was five minutes earlier.
Social Media! One of the teens has a large social media presence. We get to see how this affects not just her, but also her friends and the town. It is really making me think about whether social media is good for undeveloped brains…or even any brains at all.
This book is one of those books that makes me wish I had been part of the social media launch. By the time I’d finished the prologue I knew this was going to be one of ‘those’ books that I’d want to promote, and promote. As part of that here’s an affiliate link so you can buy all their copies and give me a little coffee money…maybe just one copy will do. But definitely read it.
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