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A review by vellichorbee
Songlines by Carolyn Denman
5.0
Guys, this book. This book!
I honestly don't even know where to start with this I enjoyed it so much. It took me a little while to get into it but once I did I was hooked. I don't think that had anything to do with the writing or plot either, I just wasn't expecting the direction it took with the Garden of Eden and it took me a while to get used to it. Once I hit the 50 page mark though I could hardly put it down.
In summary, the story follows a girl named Lainie who lives in Victoria and is undertaking her last year of high school and busy studying for her VCE (read: SATs if you're American). A mining company shows up in her small town and wants to mine on land which is technically part of her aunt's sheep farm. This is when things start to get strange and Lainie discovers that not only is her mother, who she thought died when she was a baby, still alive but also that she herself has powers.
I am not someone with Indigenous Australian heritage but the concerns I had about this book being culturally appropriative or exploitative in my humble opinion were largely unwarranted. I'm totally happy to be corrected on this but my impression of this book was that the author was respectful of Indigenous Australia culture and included elements of the Dreaming without purporting herself to be an expert on the subject. One of the central characters was an Indigenous Australian elder and Lainie herself had Indigenous ancestry but didn't appear to be part of the community.
I thought it was an interesting use of the Indigenous Australian worldview in terms of protecting the environment and acknowledging their connection with the land without the author using traditional stories as a foundational element of the plot. Instead, the plot was largely centred around the Judeo-Christian story about the Garden of Eden.
Lainie showed great character development throughout the story. She started off disliking her male best friend's girlfriends which is a form of pitting girls against each other that I usually hate to see in young adult books (or any books for that matter). Here though, her feelings were acknowledged and she came to recognise that her behaviour was unwarranted and she ended up becoming good friends with the girl her friend ends up with. It was a realistic and ultimately wholesome exploration of jealousy that was resolved quite well.
One of the other things I really liked about this book was that her best friend wasn't left behind or tossed aside when Lainie's love interest arrived. Instead, her childhood best friend is an integral part of her story and the two friends and their love interests ended up forming a pretty badass quartet.
Carolyn Denman's writing was beautifully vivid and I could picture all the settings perfectly, from the caves to the bush and even Eden itself. This combination of poetic description and Australian cultural references made for an enjoyable and sometimes pretty amusing read. The writing voice was authentic and addictive, I can't wait to pick up the next book and more of Denman's work.
I honestly don't even know where to start with this I enjoyed it so much. It took me a little while to get into it but once I did I was hooked. I don't think that had anything to do with the writing or plot either, I just wasn't expecting the direction it took with the Garden of Eden and it took me a while to get used to it. Once I hit the 50 page mark though I could hardly put it down.
In summary, the story follows a girl named Lainie who lives in Victoria and is undertaking her last year of high school and busy studying for her VCE (read: SATs if you're American). A mining company shows up in her small town and wants to mine on land which is technically part of her aunt's sheep farm. This is when things start to get strange and Lainie discovers that not only is her mother, who she thought died when she was a baby, still alive but also that she herself has powers.
I am not someone with Indigenous Australian heritage but the concerns I had about this book being culturally appropriative or exploitative in my humble opinion were largely unwarranted. I'm totally happy to be corrected on this but my impression of this book was that the author was respectful of Indigenous Australia culture and included elements of the Dreaming without purporting herself to be an expert on the subject. One of the central characters was an Indigenous Australian elder and Lainie herself had Indigenous ancestry but didn't appear to be part of the community.
I thought it was an interesting use of the Indigenous Australian worldview in terms of protecting the environment and acknowledging their connection with the land without the author using traditional stories as a foundational element of the plot. Instead, the plot was largely centred around the Judeo-Christian story about the Garden of Eden.
Lainie showed great character development throughout the story. She started off disliking her male best friend's girlfriends which is a form of pitting girls against each other that I usually hate to see in young adult books (or any books for that matter). Here though, her feelings were acknowledged and she came to recognise that her behaviour was unwarranted and she ended up becoming good friends with the girl her friend ends up with. It was a realistic and ultimately wholesome exploration of jealousy that was resolved quite well.
One of the other things I really liked about this book was that her best friend wasn't left behind or tossed aside when Lainie's love interest arrived. Instead, her childhood best friend is an integral part of her story and the two friends and their love interests ended up forming a pretty badass quartet.
Carolyn Denman's writing was beautifully vivid and I could picture all the settings perfectly, from the caves to the bush and even Eden itself. This combination of poetic description and Australian cultural references made for an enjoyable and sometimes pretty amusing read. The writing voice was authentic and addictive, I can't wait to pick up the next book and more of Denman's work.