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A review by melbsreads
New Guinea Moon by Kate Constable
4.0
My first read for the Oceania installment of the #AroundTheWorldAThon.
Set in the 1970s, this is the story of a teenage girl basically meeting her father for the first time when she goes to spend the summer with him in Papua New Guinea shortly before independence.
I've never read anything set in PNG before, and this was...surprisingly great. I expected it to be pretty fluffy based on the cover, and on the surface it was. It's a teenage girl meeting her father and discovering her place in the world and ending up in a not-particularly-romantic romantic relationship.
BUT.
There's so much commentary on the nature of expat society, on race relations between white expats and the local community, on the way biracial children are treated by the expat population, on the way that local women basically raise white children while working as housekeepers and are referred to as "my second mother" but are then fired without a second thought when the children no longer need care. And Julie - having grown up under the influence of her left wing feminist mother - is the one who can see what the others can't.
Honestly, there were some elements that felt a little bit rushed and that could have been fleshed out far more than they were. But on the whole, I thoroughly enjoyed this one, and Constable's love for Papua New Guinea shines through.
Set in the 1970s, this is the story of a teenage girl basically meeting her father for the first time when she goes to spend the summer with him in Papua New Guinea shortly before independence.
I've never read anything set in PNG before, and this was...surprisingly great. I expected it to be pretty fluffy based on the cover, and on the surface it was. It's a teenage girl meeting her father and discovering her place in the world and ending up in a not-particularly-romantic romantic relationship.
BUT.
There's so much commentary on the nature of expat society, on race relations between white expats and the local community, on the way biracial children are treated by the expat population, on the way that local women basically raise white children while working as housekeepers and are referred to as "my second mother" but are then fired without a second thought when the children no longer need care. And Julie - having grown up under the influence of her left wing feminist mother - is the one who can see what the others can't.
Honestly, there were some elements that felt a little bit rushed and that could have been fleshed out far more than they were. But on the whole, I thoroughly enjoyed this one, and Constable's love for Papua New Guinea shines through.