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A review by smitchy
Goodwood by Holly Throsby
3.0
I has taken me a while to sort out how I feel about Goodwood. My problem with it is that this really is a YA novel trying to pass for adult fiction. At its' heart Goodwood is a coming of age novel. The protagonist, Jean, a 17-year old in her final year of school, is trying to sort out her attraction to the new girl in school and is obsessed with the two recent disappearances in town.
The two people who have disappeared could not be more different: the first is the moody 19 year old Rosie. She works at the local chippy and talked about escaping the town. She goes to bed one night and is missing in the morning. The second person is well-known and well-liked Bart. Middle aged and an essential part of the community. Bart was the town butcher, local councillor, family man and rotary chair. He goes fishing one Sunday and hours later his boat is found floating abandoned in the lake.
Searches for the missing people turn up nothing and speculation is rife. Jean studies every little thing about the people around her searching for answers.
We are almost overwhelmed with detail about the town, the people and life in early 90's rural Australia. There is certainly an element of nostalgia to this story. As a child of the 90's and a small town this is certainly familiar territory.
I think the biggest disappointment for me is the potential mystery turns out to be nothing more than unfortunate circumstance. I mean I read 300 odd pages and studied all the details in the hope of finding a killer (or at least and accidental murder) and nothing.
One of the reviews on the book compared it to Jasper Jones by Craig Silvey and I can see were that comes from, but overall I felt it lacked Jasper Jones' depth. But at least it was without the incessant references to American literature that makes Jasper Jones feel like a homage for the first half of the book.
The two people who have disappeared could not be more different: the first is the moody 19 year old Rosie. She works at the local chippy and talked about escaping the town. She goes to bed one night and is missing in the morning. The second person is well-known and well-liked Bart. Middle aged and an essential part of the community. Bart was the town butcher, local councillor, family man and rotary chair. He goes fishing one Sunday and hours later his boat is found floating abandoned in the lake.
Searches for the missing people turn up nothing and speculation is rife. Jean studies every little thing about the people around her searching for answers.
We are almost overwhelmed with detail about the town, the people and life in early 90's rural Australia. There is certainly an element of nostalgia to this story. As a child of the 90's and a small town this is certainly familiar territory.
I think the biggest disappointment for me is the potential mystery turns out to be nothing more than unfortunate circumstance. I mean I read 300 odd pages and studied all the details in the hope of finding a killer (or at least and accidental murder) and nothing.
One of the reviews on the book compared it to Jasper Jones by Craig Silvey and I can see were that comes from, but overall I felt it lacked Jasper Jones' depth. But at least it was without the incessant references to American literature that makes Jasper Jones feel like a homage for the first half of the book.