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incrediblemelk's review
challenging
dark
emotional
hopeful
inspiring
reflective
sad
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.25
I borrowed this from the library on two separate one-week loans. I had to take it back at the start of the first loan period and then I’ve completely inhaled the remaining 2/3 on another one-week period.
I am fascinated by stories of early Australian colonisation because to me they represent such a bittersweet moment of missed opportunity of goodwill on the behalf of the land owners and the squandering of that goodwill by white settlers.
Tom Petrie is such an interesting character because he was historically an initiated Yagara man, and he spoke the language from childhood. He understood Aboriginal law and was respected by the landowners of Magandjin, yet he was inescapably white and held a position of great privilege within the emerging colonial society.
Lucashenko is quite canny in showing the way that Tom is caught between these two cultures and the tragedy that he will always have to come down on the side of white people rather than that of his Yagara brothers.
Winona and Johnny were also two fascinating characters in that Winona represents the modern Blak radical and Johnny is someone who’s an earnest seeker, trying to understand who he is and making lots of mistakes.
At times I found Winona very unlikeable in her political purism and her unwillingness to accept goodwill. Her own struggles with mental illness aren’t a major focus of the book and kind of melt away at the end, but ultimately she and Johnny reach a rapprochement that feels authentic to both of their characters.
Mulanyin was a wonderfully vivid character, too: so full of emotion and so deeply connected to his Country and people. But like Winona he is also a frequently dogmatic and inflexible person in his efforts to be staunch. I don’t know if Lucashenko deliberately set out to connect Winona and Mulanyin in this way, but I liked that they are such similar personalities.
Mulanyin is also a tragic hero. What I find so morbidly urgent about these stories that imagine early colonisation is the horror for the landowners of seeing your whole beautiful world being stolen and desecrated in your own lifetime, and struggling to hold on to hope in the future.
The Elders at the time may have hoped for a conclusive defeat of the dagai (I have Jane Harrison’s novel The Visitors on my shelf, which I think might contain some of these debates) so life could resume as it always had, but the terrible fate of the following generations would be to witness their people’s genocide and to try to survive it.
That’s why Edenglassie is a hopeful and moving book, because it testifies to that hard-won survival of the people and their cultural memory. Mulanyin’s defiant self-determination cost him his life; but Winona can learn from her Granny Eddie’s ways – learned pragmatically through hard experience, like Eddie’s great-grandmother Nita – to honour her people cleverly and strategically rather than lashing out in rage and revenge.
I’m feeling so emotional after finishing this book, thinking about the people around the world struggling to survive genocide and to throw off the yoke of colonial capitalism. Like Johnny I want to learn and be mindful, but unlike him I can never really belong to this Country where I live. Like Tom Petrie I have to do my best to be mindful of my unearned privilege and actively seek to do good.
I am fascinated by stories of early Australian colonisation because to me they represent such a bittersweet moment of missed opportunity of goodwill on the behalf of the land owners and the squandering of that goodwill by white settlers.
Tom Petrie is such an interesting character because he was historically an initiated Yagara man, and he spoke the language from childhood. He understood Aboriginal law and was respected by the landowners of Magandjin, yet he was inescapably white and held a position of great privilege within the emerging colonial society.
Lucashenko is quite canny in showing the way that Tom is caught between these two cultures and the tragedy that he will always have to come down on the side of white people rather than that of his Yagara brothers.
Winona and Johnny were also two fascinating characters in that Winona represents the modern Blak radical and Johnny is someone who’s an earnest seeker, trying to understand who he is and making lots of mistakes.
At times I found Winona very unlikeable in her political purism and her unwillingness to accept goodwill. Her own struggles with mental illness aren’t a major focus of the book and kind of melt away at the end, but ultimately she and Johnny reach a rapprochement that feels authentic to both of their characters.
Mulanyin was a wonderfully vivid character, too: so full of emotion and so deeply connected to his Country and people. But like Winona he is also a frequently dogmatic and inflexible person in his efforts to be staunch. I don’t know if Lucashenko deliberately set out to connect Winona and Mulanyin in this way, but I liked that they are such similar personalities.
Mulanyin is also a tragic hero. What I find so morbidly urgent about these stories that imagine early colonisation is the horror for the landowners of seeing your whole beautiful world being stolen and desecrated in your own lifetime, and struggling to hold on to hope in the future.
The Elders at the time may have hoped for a conclusive defeat of the dagai (I have Jane Harrison’s novel The Visitors on my shelf, which I think might contain some of these debates) so life could resume as it always had, but the terrible fate of the following generations would be to witness their people’s genocide and to try to survive it.
That’s why Edenglassie is a hopeful and moving book, because it testifies to that hard-won survival of the people and their cultural memory. Mulanyin’s defiant self-determination cost him his life; but Winona can learn from her Granny Eddie’s ways – learned pragmatically through hard experience, like Eddie’s great-grandmother Nita – to honour her people cleverly and strategically rather than lashing out in rage and revenge.
I’m feeling so emotional after finishing this book, thinking about the people around the world struggling to survive genocide and to throw off the yoke of colonial capitalism. Like Johnny I want to learn and be mindful, but unlike him I can never really belong to this Country where I live. Like Tom Petrie I have to do my best to be mindful of my unearned privilege and actively seek to do good.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Genocide, Colonisation, Grief, Injury/Injury detail, Racism, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , and Xenophobia
bhictoria's review
challenging
emotional
funny
hopeful
informative
reflective
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.75
Content Warnings
Graphic: Colonisation
Moderate: Death of parent, Death, Murder, Racism, and Grief
Minor: Rape
treesofreverie's review
challenging
dark
emotional
funny
hopeful
informative
reflective
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
5.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Violence, Death, Slavery, Medical content, Genocide, Colonisation, Grief, Murder, Police brutality, Racism, Racial slurs, and Pregnancy
Moderate: Cultural appropriation, Gore, Mental illness, Child death, Alcohol, Drug use, Alcoholism, Sexual violence, and Sexual assault
Minor: Rape, Addiction, Torture, and Religious bigotry
bejf's review
adventurous
challenging
dark
emotional
hopeful
informative
mysterious
reflective
sad
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
5.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: War, Violence, Slavery, Police brutality, Cultural appropriation, Injury/Injury detail, Murder, Genocide, Death of parent, Child abuse, Death, Grief, and Colonisation
jkreads's review against another edition
challenging
dark
emotional
hopeful
informative
reflective
sad
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
5.0
Edenglassie was a searing, emotional journey through time and culture. It shifts between two timelines; that of Mulanyin and Nita in the 1850s, and that of Winona, Johnny and Granny Eddie in 2024.
The narrative jumps between timelines were seamless and I loved how beautifully all the plot threads were slowly pulled together to create the beautiful tapestry that made up this book. It was a challenging, heartbreaking, hopeful, romantic, soul-crushing, heartwarming read that broke me and put me back together over and over again. Melissa Lucashenko’s writing is beautiful and the audiobook narration was great too. For a book that dealt with so many huge and awful topics, it was very easy to read and I struggled to put it down! It was the kind of book I actually missed when I wasn’t reading it.
I really valued seeing different experiences of colonialism and connection to culture represented in this book - especially those of Winona who was brought up Aboriginal, and Johnny who only found out he was Aboriginal and connected to mob and culture later in life. Winona’s reaction to Johnny’s indigenous identity felt both jarring and also completely understandable.
I don’t want to give too much away in this review because I truly think everyone deserves to experience this book for themselves but the reveal in the end about how Mulanyin and Nita’s story ended had me in an absolute state while driving to work and finishing up the audiobook. It felt inevitable but it also somehow knocked the wind out of me. It’s been a while since I felt gut-punched by a book but this one did it, well and truly! I’ll be thinking about this one for a long time.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Racial slurs, Racism, Colonisation, and Violence
Moderate: Cultural appropriation, Child death, Addiction, Murder, Alcoholism, Grief, Medical content, Mental illness, Death, Police brutality, and Rape
Minor: Slavery
sian's review
adventurous
challenging
dark
emotional
hopeful
informative
reflective
sad
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.75
Content Warnings
Graphic: Physical abuse, Racism, Hate crime, Pregnancy, Grief, Racial slurs, Violence, Injury/Injury detail, Murder, Medical content, Death, and Police brutality
Moderate: Gore, Death of parent, Child death, Alcohol, Sexual assault, Addiction, Drug use, Rape, and Sexual violence
Minor: Torture, Slavery, Religious bigotry, and Abandonment
heather_harrison's review against another edition
adventurous
challenging
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
4.25
denglassie sits between two timelines in Brisbane (Edenglassie) - modern day with granny Eddie and her outspoken grand daughter Winona, and Mulanyin in 1850s.
While the characters were all unflinching honest, at times they could be a bit grating.
From the beginning I was drawn to Edie & Winona’s story in the modern times, by the end I was desperate to hear more about Mulanyin, Eddie and their budding family.
“The land here has its own law. They think that only their British law exists, or the only law that matters in the eyes of God”
“If a clan must constantly defend their land, then they are effectively always at law.
“The country holds no Dreaming to keep them at home”
“We bring people in. We bring our mob home”
While the characters were all unflinching honest, at times they could be a bit grating.
From the beginning I was drawn to Edie & Winona’s story in the modern times, by the end I was desperate to hear more about Mulanyin, Eddie and their budding family.
“The land here has its own law. They think that only their British law exists, or the only law that matters in the eyes of God”
“If a clan must constantly defend their land, then they are effectively always at law.
“The country holds no Dreaming to keep them at home”
“We bring people in. We bring our mob home”
Content Warnings
Graphic: Colonisation, Racism, Genocide, War, and Grief
lauren_mansfield0201's review
dark
emotional
inspiring
reflective
sad
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
5.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Addiction, Death, Drug use, Grief, Mental illness, Murder, Pregnancy, Genocide, Sexual harassment, Violence, Slavery, Colonisation, Hate crime, Medical content, and Racism
georgiarybanks's review against another edition
adventurous
challenging
emotional
funny
hopeful
informative
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
5.0
Content Warnings
Minor: Sexual violence, Racial slurs, Racism, Colonisation, Death, Grief, Suicidal thoughts, Violence, and Genocide
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