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gabrielle_erin's review against another edition
2.0
The entire time I was reading this I just felt like I was on the outside looking in... always missing something. I really enjoyed Tiffany's writing style and the premise has so much promise but aside from a few poignant moments, the execution fell flat for me.
essjay1's review against another edition
5.0
So tightly written, so keenly observed - this is a masterpiece of storytelling.
A story about family violence and abuse, a young girl takes back power by withholding speech and quietly sabotaging her abusive step fathers business. I could not put this down.
A story about family violence and abuse, a young girl takes back power by withholding speech and quietly sabotaging her abusive step fathers business. I could not put this down.
henrymarlene's review against another edition
4.0
This book was very intense, violent, silent and still. 'Exploded View' was a short story with a very tragic underlay. It is very clear that this book alludes to some kind of domestic violence and abuse, however it is never in direct view. The book has movement through the repairing of cars by the narrator's 'father-man', the reading of the Holden engine manual, and a very long trip in the back of the family car; yet there is a certain stillness in every image captured by the author. The narrator, a young girl, is not named and when we meet her she has spents many days not speaking, with no explanation given. The writing is short and abrupt in some places, with a tense feeling at the back of the neck like something bad was always around the corner. It also conveyed an escape for the narrator, where she sometimes stepped outside of herself, like she was watching her own actions before her eyes. Her neighbourhood break-and-enters are sad and lonesome. Skipping school becomes a regularity, and her spot in that long car trip on the car floor was demeaning, like she did not exist. Her sneaking out of the locked fortress of a house to take cars out for a midnight drive or to sabotage the work father-man had done was calculated, and a way to escape. "The smallest part is often where the break occurs."
elnechnntt's review against another edition
2.0
I picked this up following a heap of praise but I have to admit was left sorely disappointed.
Perhaps because I’ve finished a couple of books already this month dealing abuse and/or trauma, and my empathy ducts are running near empty, but I just found this really ... boring. So tiredly boring.
The writing did absolutely nothing for me and the repetitive sentence structure ‘Here is ...’ and ‘This is a ...’ became exasperating very quickly.
Utterly forgettable.
Perhaps because I’ve finished a couple of books already this month dealing abuse and/or trauma, and my empathy ducts are running near empty, but I just found this really ... boring. So tiredly boring.
The writing did absolutely nothing for me and the repetitive sentence structure ‘Here is ...’ and ‘This is a ...’ became exasperating very quickly.
Utterly forgettable.
azlanm's review against another edition
5.0
This was a compassionate, unflinching perspective of childhood abuse from the viewpoint of our unnamed narrator.
Our narrator lives with her mother, brother, and violent stepfather "fatherman". Using the rules of a battleground that the fatherman will understand, she sabotages car parts in his mechanics workshop, trying to stay in control of her life.
Our narrator lives with her mother, brother, and violent stepfather "fatherman". Using the rules of a battleground that the fatherman will understand, she sabotages car parts in his mechanics workshop, trying to stay in control of her life.
textpublishing's review against another edition
‘This tense novel, held tightly with elegant restraint, is hard to read for the best possible reasons. It asks a lot of its reader, but it offers the most satisfying rewards.’
The Lifted Brow
‘Exploded View has all the exhilaration of a revved-up Holden’
Age
‘Exploded View…(is) a measured, poetic focus on the small details in nature, roads and relationships.’
Arts Hub
‘This is Tiffany’s triumph…her prose has the alert, truncated poetry of a preternatural wise child—lyrical without being florid, clear-sighted by unhappy with that early knowledge…It’s title might suggest splintering of focus, but the line drawn in Exploded View is unwavering, tragic, and heads straight down.’
Monthly
‘This is a very different novel to Tiffany’s early books…The language is glitter, angrier and focalised exquisitely through this girl’s perspective.’
Australian
‘Carrie Tiffany’s third novel…As spare as a poem, as potent as a depth charge.’
SA Weekend
‘Tiffany pulls off something remarkable here: erecting a narrative structure almost buckling under its own weight, but that ultimately holds up. Challenging and devastating, this is an important read.’
Overland
'Exploded View is an offbeat coming-of-age story...there is hardly a detail that does not reverberate beyond itself, evoke some deeper implication.’
Australian Book Review
Shortlisted for Voss Literary Prize 2020
The Lifted Brow
‘Exploded View has all the exhilaration of a revved-up Holden’
Age
‘Exploded View…(is) a measured, poetic focus on the small details in nature, roads and relationships.’
Arts Hub
‘This is Tiffany’s triumph…her prose has the alert, truncated poetry of a preternatural wise child—lyrical without being florid, clear-sighted by unhappy with that early knowledge…It’s title might suggest splintering of focus, but the line drawn in Exploded View is unwavering, tragic, and heads straight down.’
Monthly
‘This is a very different novel to Tiffany’s early books…The language is glitter, angrier and focalised exquisitely through this girl’s perspective.’
Australian
‘Carrie Tiffany’s third novel…As spare as a poem, as potent as a depth charge.’
SA Weekend
‘Tiffany pulls off something remarkable here: erecting a narrative structure almost buckling under its own weight, but that ultimately holds up. Challenging and devastating, this is an important read.’
Overland
'Exploded View is an offbeat coming-of-age story...there is hardly a detail that does not reverberate beyond itself, evoke some deeper implication.’
Australian Book Review
Shortlisted for Voss Literary Prize 2020
tessaays's review against another edition
4.0
3.5 rounded up. Good god this was depressing, but the writing is explosively lovely and tender and bruising and exquisitely built. As you’re reading you sort of feel like you’re in the eye of a hurricane - you can see the devastation around you, and you know it’s closing in, but you don’t feel it until you’re suddenly thrown into the full power of the story’s ending and you realise that all your muscles have been clenched the whole time. A hard book to forget.
rikkireads_'s review
3.0
I really disliked Tiffany's previous book, 'Mateship With Birds', so it didn't seem like the best idea to pick up this one. I was convinced, however, after listening to her speak at #adlww, so I read it. I didn't hate it, in fact I was impressed by the writing and respect it as an admirable work of literary fiction. It is told in vignettes, mostly on a roadtrip. The themes are troubling but the poetic and symbolic writing somehow make it less confronting while also showing the darkness. I really liked the main character and her destructive ways, and if nothing else I enjoyed it more than 'Mateship...'.
belinda_chisholm's review against another edition
challenging
dark
sad
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
2.0