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A review by melbsreads
Meet Me at the Intersection by Ambelin Kwaymullina, Rebecca Lim
3.5
Trigger warnings: racism, homophobia, bullying, death of a parent (in the past), death of a grandparent, mental health.
So here's the thing: I wanted to love this collection, all of which are by diverse authors. But I had two niggling issues with it. One is that it feels eeeeeever so slightly lacking in cohesion given that it's a mixture of fiction, poetry, and memoir. Especially when much of the memoir was written from an adult perspective in a young adult collection...
The other niggle is the choice to section out the stories into categories. So you start with stories by Aboriginal authors, then stories by disabled authors, then queer authors, and finally authors of colour. And because all the stories were clumped together, I found that by the end of each section, the stories were starting to lose their impact because I'd just read X other stories of the same sort.
All of that being said, I did enjoy a lot of what I read. I don't think there were any stories where I was like "I don't like this and I want it to be over". Instead, there were plenty that I enjoyed and a handful that fell sort of flat for me. My favourites were Night Feet, Harry Potter and the Disappearing Pages, Stars in Our Eyes, Autumn Leaves, and The Last Stop. The diverse nature of this collection would actually make for a really interesting set text, and I honestly did enjoy it. I just wish the stories had been arranged some other way...
So here's the thing: I wanted to love this collection, all of which are by diverse authors. But I had two niggling issues with it. One is that it feels eeeeeever so slightly lacking in cohesion given that it's a mixture of fiction, poetry, and memoir. Especially when much of the memoir was written from an adult perspective in a young adult collection...
The other niggle is the choice to section out the stories into categories. So you start with stories by Aboriginal authors, then stories by disabled authors, then queer authors, and finally authors of colour. And because all the stories were clumped together, I found that by the end of each section, the stories were starting to lose their impact because I'd just read X other stories of the same sort.
All of that being said, I did enjoy a lot of what I read. I don't think there were any stories where I was like "I don't like this and I want it to be over". Instead, there were plenty that I enjoyed and a handful that fell sort of flat for me. My favourites were Night Feet, Harry Potter and the Disappearing Pages, Stars in Our Eyes, Autumn Leaves, and The Last Stop. The diverse nature of this collection would actually make for a really interesting set text, and I honestly did enjoy it. I just wish the stories had been arranged some other way...