A review by ireadbooksnotminds
Between Us by Clare Atkins

4.0

What I loved was how all three of the main characters in this book are People of Colour. It would’ve been just as easy for Atkins to write Jono and Kenny as white, but since Atkins herself is a biracial Vietnamese-Australian, I think it’s safe to assume that Jono’s cultural background and heritage were a nod to her own.

What I didn’t love so much—

There is no closure, there is no closure, there is no closure. URGHHHH. I’m so disappointed. I really loved Ana and Jono as a couple, and I understand that circumstances that were out of their control are of course stronger than their attraction to each other, but the lack of a real closure between the two of them in the end made me so sad.

Immigration and racism have been tackled in Australian YA books before, but this is one of the only ones I know that specifically tackle the issue of detention centres in Australia and the poor treatment of the people in them. This book comes out in less than a month, so as a heads up, some books that I found similar to this and this reminded me of are When Michael Met Mina by Randa Abdel-Fattah (known as The Lines We Cross in the U.S.), The Bone Sparrow by Zana Fraillon, The Sun is Also a Star by Nicola Yoon, Eleanor & Park by Rainbow Rowell, The Things I Didn’t Say by Kylie Fornasier, and How It Went Down by Kekla Magoon.

Thank you, Black Inc Publishing, for sending me an ARC! Look out for this in stores on Feb 1.