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jedore's review against another edition
dark
emotional
hopeful
inspiring
reflective
sad
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.75
I had found a new friend. The surprising thing is where I’d found him – not up a tree or sulking in the shade, or splashing around in one of the hill streams, but in a book. No one had told us kids to look there for a friend. Or that you could slip inside the skin of another. Or travel to another place with marshes, and where, to our ears, the bad people spoke like pirates.
I wish I had known that this delicious book is best served up with Dickens’ Great Expectations as the first course! I read it, but it was too long ago (2008) to serve me while reading this book. There’s no doubt my rating would have been 5 stars had my memory not faded.
Despite missing a lot of the Great Expectations references, I absolutely loved this book. It’s very well written, the characters were wonderful (especially Matilda, the narrator and main character), and the story was incredibly touching, heartbreaking, and tragic. Loved the message about imperfect people still being able to do perfect things…something I needed to be reminded of these days. You’ll also learn about a beautiful place called Bougainville, a small island in Papua New Guinea that I knew nothing about before picking up this book.
I added this to my reading list more than 20 years ago…I wish I could remember how and why it ended up there. So glad it did!
Content Warnings
Graphic: Death, Grief, Violence, War, and Death of parent
Moderate: Rape, Abandonment, Child death, Colonisation, and Mental illness
Minor: Gore
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