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tatterededges's review against another edition
3.0
If you had a drink every time the author used the word Goodwood in the book, you'd be dead.
cara_cee's review against another edition
adventurous
mysterious
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
3.5
jacki_f's review against another edition
3.0
Goodwood is a small town in rural New South Wales, Australia. Set in the early 1990s, this is both a mystery about the disappearance of two members of the community and a coming of age story for our narrator, 17 year old Jean White. It's a very Australian novel, full of small town atmosphere and riddled with the Australian vernacular.
The storyline focuses on the disappearance of a local girl, 18 year old Rosie White. A week later the local butcher also disappears while fishing on the lake. "Two people from Goodwood - two very different people - inexplicably gone. And the rest of town holding its breath."
I liked this book, but the missing girl in a rural Australian town is becoming quite the genre and I didn't think this was as strong as some of the others I've read. The book is partly narrated by Jean and I couldn't work out if it was all being told by Jean (even though she couldn't have known all the details) or whether part was an omnipresent narrator, albeit one with Jean's way of looking at the world. Also, the balance between the mysteries and Jean's life sat kind of uneasily. While at the end the mysteries are solved, they are almost a throwaway and it feels like Jean was the one that we were meant to be focused on all along - but she's just not that interesting a character.
The other problem I had with the book is that there are so many characters. We met virtually everyone in the town and I had problems keeping them all straight in my mind. At the front of the book is a hand drawn map of the town but I felt like it would have been more useful to have a list of who was who so that I wasn't always trying to remember which family individual characters belonged to.
It had a great sense of place and some interesting characters but I don't think there is anything that will stay with me about this book.
The storyline focuses on the disappearance of a local girl, 18 year old Rosie White. A week later the local butcher also disappears while fishing on the lake. "Two people from Goodwood - two very different people - inexplicably gone. And the rest of town holding its breath."
I liked this book, but the missing girl in a rural Australian town is becoming quite the genre and I didn't think this was as strong as some of the others I've read. The book is partly narrated by Jean and I couldn't work out if it was all being told by Jean (even though she couldn't have known all the details) or whether part was an omnipresent narrator, albeit one with Jean's way of looking at the world. Also, the balance between the mysteries and Jean's life sat kind of uneasily. While at the end the mysteries are solved, they are almost a throwaway and it feels like Jean was the one that we were meant to be focused on all along - but she's just not that interesting a character.
The other problem I had with the book is that there are so many characters. We met virtually everyone in the town and I had problems keeping them all straight in my mind. At the front of the book is a hand drawn map of the town but I felt like it would have been more useful to have a list of who was who so that I wasn't always trying to remember which family individual characters belonged to.
It had a great sense of place and some interesting characters but I don't think there is anything that will stay with me about this book.
essjay1's review against another edition
3.0
I liked this book. 3.5 stars. I think you might have to be Australian to enjoy some of the dry humour. But a good story and lots of keenly observed local characters. I read most of this book on a long flight and it was perfect for that environment.
vsteg1's review against another edition
3.0
Liked it, though it didn't quite live up to the hype, as I know this book sold its pants off over Christmas.
The unconventional way the story was told (meandering and very detail-oriented) took some getting used to, but I definitely found myself getting swept up in it after the halfway mark. Holly Throsby hit the nail on the head evoking that small-town vibe with this way of writing, so hats off to her - it just took a while before I got used to reading like that.
I also like that the narrator is a young wlw but that fact isn't remotely central or even important to the story - I love me some normalised queer representation.
I was pleased with the way all the threads came together at the end, and the last few chapters are easily the most riveting of the whole book. I just spent the first half of the book wishing it would pick up the pace quicker.
Criticism aside, it's definitely worth a read; a solid three stars.
The unconventional way the story was told (meandering and very detail-oriented) took some getting used to, but I definitely found myself getting swept up in it after the halfway mark. Holly Throsby hit the nail on the head evoking that small-town vibe with this way of writing, so hats off to her - it just took a while before I got used to reading like that.
I also like that the narrator is a young wlw but that fact isn't remotely central or even important to the story - I love me some normalised queer representation.
I was pleased with the way all the threads came together at the end, and the last few chapters are easily the most riveting of the whole book. I just spent the first half of the book wishing it would pick up the pace quicker.
Criticism aside, it's definitely worth a read; a solid three stars.
mlcreads's review against another edition
2.0
I received this book as an advanced reading copy. This story set in a small Australian town which has some typical Aussie stereotypes. The story is centred around a teenage girl, Jean, growing up in this tight knit community when two of the towns popular residents go missing. What has happened in their small community is the focus of the story and how the individuals deal with the mystery and the fallout when the mystery is solved. The only problem I had was the relationship that developed between Jean and Evie at the end of the book did not seem to fit into the rest of the story. An enjoyable read.
kcfromaustcrime's review against another edition
5.0
Small town living in 1990's Australia is big in GOODWOOD, which is interesting as this is a slow burning, confined, seemingly "small" story in the life of 17 year old Jean. She lives in Goodwood, a small town, near a bigger town, with her mother, near her grandparents, surrounded by people she knows, or is somehow related to, all of whom are known, related to somebody. It's the sort of town where you go to the bigger town to do the big shop, but the local town is where you get the essentials - and the gossip - and the support and understanding. There is so much that rings true about that time, and the reality of small town life that you can really believe / understand how it is that the disappearance of two people from such a small community has such a profound impact. Even more understandable is Jean's confusion and her way of processing not just the disappearances, but the fallout for everyone in the town. Suspicion and fear don't rub along well in a world with, as Jean's Nan puts it, "a high density of acquaintanceship".
Small is a poor description to use for this novel but it's a hard one to explain. It's small in that the location, the events, the impact is local and the ramifications don't seem to stretch much outside the community. It's not small in that those ramifications are pretty shattering for that small a community, but they are illustrated more in the day to day, than in grand psychological analysis. It's also a slow burner, languid, as the mystery behind these two disappearances is used to explore consequence and the impact of the unexpected. Jean's observations about the communities reactions, the slow twitch of discomfort that everyone is experiencing, and the different ways it manifests is beautifully executed. Dryly funny, observant and both young and old for her age, Jean's the perfect sort of character to carry the narrative here forward and a bit sideways at times. GOODWOOD is not really about the investigation of disappearance, it's about the fallout.
Jean's style is enhanced by a great supporting cast, with plenty of believable characters in their own right, many of whom are able to drop a truism into a conversation as effortlessly as they do a little gem of Australian-style wisdom. Jean's Nan made me laugh out loud on more than one occasion, as she let go lines that my own Grandmother would have happily and unflinchingly served up.
GOODWOOD came flagged as a crime fiction novel, and the thing I'm increasingly coming to admire in Australian Crime writing circles is how widely that genre definition is starting to spread. This isn't crime / investigation as mentioned above, but it's definitely possible crime / fallout and ramifications.
https://www.austcrimefiction.org/review/goodwood-holly-throsby
Small is a poor description to use for this novel but it's a hard one to explain. It's small in that the location, the events, the impact is local and the ramifications don't seem to stretch much outside the community. It's not small in that those ramifications are pretty shattering for that small a community, but they are illustrated more in the day to day, than in grand psychological analysis. It's also a slow burner, languid, as the mystery behind these two disappearances is used to explore consequence and the impact of the unexpected. Jean's observations about the communities reactions, the slow twitch of discomfort that everyone is experiencing, and the different ways it manifests is beautifully executed. Dryly funny, observant and both young and old for her age, Jean's the perfect sort of character to carry the narrative here forward and a bit sideways at times. GOODWOOD is not really about the investigation of disappearance, it's about the fallout.
Jean's style is enhanced by a great supporting cast, with plenty of believable characters in their own right, many of whom are able to drop a truism into a conversation as effortlessly as they do a little gem of Australian-style wisdom. Jean's Nan made me laugh out loud on more than one occasion, as she let go lines that my own Grandmother would have happily and unflinchingly served up.
GOODWOOD came flagged as a crime fiction novel, and the thing I'm increasingly coming to admire in Australian Crime writing circles is how widely that genre definition is starting to spread. This isn't crime / investigation as mentioned above, but it's definitely possible crime / fallout and ramifications.
https://www.austcrimefiction.org/review/goodwood-holly-throsby
knitswithbeer's review against another edition
5.0
Beautifully written evocative tale of tragedy in a small town. Character depiction is rich and multi-layered, flowing like the river does into the Lake. A very enjoyable 'read' via Lancashire Library BorrowBox app.
smitchy's review against another edition
3.0
I has taken me a while to sort out how I feel about Goodwood. My problem with it is that this really is a YA novel trying to pass for adult fiction. At its' heart Goodwood is a coming of age novel. The protagonist, Jean, a 17-year old in her final year of school, is trying to sort out her attraction to the new girl in school and is obsessed with the two recent disappearances in town.
The two people who have disappeared could not be more different: the first is the moody 19 year old Rosie. She works at the local chippy and talked about escaping the town. She goes to bed one night and is missing in the morning. The second person is well-known and well-liked Bart. Middle aged and an essential part of the community. Bart was the town butcher, local councillor, family man and rotary chair. He goes fishing one Sunday and hours later his boat is found floating abandoned in the lake.
Searches for the missing people turn up nothing and speculation is rife. Jean studies every little thing about the people around her searching for answers.
We are almost overwhelmed with detail about the town, the people and life in early 90's rural Australia. There is certainly an element of nostalgia to this story. As a child of the 90's and a small town this is certainly familiar territory.
I think the biggest disappointment for me is the potential mystery turns out to be nothing more than unfortunate circumstance. I mean I read 300 odd pages and studied all the details in the hope of finding a killer (or at least and accidental murder) and nothing.
One of the reviews on the book compared it to Jasper Jones by Craig Silvey and I can see were that comes from, but overall I felt it lacked Jasper Jones' depth. But at least it was without the incessant references to American literature that makes Jasper Jones feel like a homage for the first half of the book.
The two people who have disappeared could not be more different: the first is the moody 19 year old Rosie. She works at the local chippy and talked about escaping the town. She goes to bed one night and is missing in the morning. The second person is well-known and well-liked Bart. Middle aged and an essential part of the community. Bart was the town butcher, local councillor, family man and rotary chair. He goes fishing one Sunday and hours later his boat is found floating abandoned in the lake.
Searches for the missing people turn up nothing and speculation is rife. Jean studies every little thing about the people around her searching for answers.
We are almost overwhelmed with detail about the town, the people and life in early 90's rural Australia. There is certainly an element of nostalgia to this story. As a child of the 90's and a small town this is certainly familiar territory.
I think the biggest disappointment for me is the potential mystery turns out to be nothing more than unfortunate circumstance. I mean I read 300 odd pages and studied all the details in the hope of finding a killer (or at least and accidental murder) and nothing.
One of the reviews on the book compared it to Jasper Jones by Craig Silvey and I can see were that comes from, but overall I felt it lacked Jasper Jones' depth. But at least it was without the incessant references to American literature that makes Jasper Jones feel like a homage for the first half of the book.