Reviews with content warning for Mental illness - Cherry Beach

This is a melancholy tale about two friends from Melbourne who move to Toronto together, taking their lives in a new direction. Ness is quiet and reserved and secretly in love with her best friend Hetty who is bubbly and outgoing.

This character driven story examines the intimacies of female friendship and the difficulties of holding on to what the friendship used to be.

There is a recurrent theme of water throughout, making many references to bodies of water which shows a vivid picture of the setting.

I did enjoy this, but wasn't that engaged and was left wanting more. The writing was soft and gentle, making it very easy to read. It was very sad and slow paced, and Ness was so self deprecating to the point that I couldn't see her grow her confidence much at all. I held on to hope that we could dive into the other characters in the story, wanting more scenes of the housemates or to explore Hetty's side of the story. Instead I felt as though every thought, action and conversation came back to Hetty. I think that was the intention, although it wasn't quite for me.

5 stars for the cover artwork, absolutely beautiful!!

Content Warnings

halfelfschollar's review against another edition

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emotional medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

When this book was recommended to me and I read the blurb I was expecting a story about a queer girl being in love with her best friend. And that's is what the story is about. It's about learning to move on and have your own life while maintaining a friendship with someone who you love but will never love you the same way. It's about seeing opportunities to change that love into something less romantic. But this book is also about the pain of watching someone you care for deeply as they loose themselves. The pain of watching them get worse and knowing you've done all you can for them.

The framing device of the water is fitting. Being a book about two Australian's water makes sense, we spend our summers at beaches and during droughts water becomes a valuable thing. It's hard to think of something else that would work for the symbolism of the book. Because when water is plentiful it represents all the things it gives life too. But by the end of the book the water has dried up and we are left wondering if it'll ever fill the rivers again.

The end wasn't something I saw coming, but it's something that I was glad to read despite the sadness of it.

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nosophiesallowed's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional reflective sad tense

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

I truly don’t know what to say about this book as i’m trying to emotionally process what i just read. It’s dark yet relatable and you do get a good feel for the characters and their motives. There were definitely some flaws but overall i really loved this book, it flowed well and was really well developed even though it’s only 220 pages.

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